


The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune

by secretsalex



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Discussion of Abortion, Divorce, HP: EWE, Healer Harry Potter, Infidelity, M/M, Mpreg, Pregnant Draco Malfoy, brief homophobic language, but not between the boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 15:25:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12867492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsalex/pseuds/secretsalex
Summary: if Astoria refuses to carry their child, Draco will—which is how he finds himself alone, pregnant, and a patient of Healer Potter’s.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this way back in 2012 for the [Mpreg Big Bang](https://mpregbb.livejournal.com/). Since I'm creeping my way back into H/D fandom, I'm slowly moving my fics to AO3. This was the first (and only) mpreg I've ever written, and it was basically an experiment to see what I could do with the genre. I ended up having a blast.

The waiting room is supposed to look charming, comforting. The seats are comfortable, upholstered in shades of soft blue that Draco is certain some interior designer insisted would be soothing. Fresh flowers adorn the tables, surrounded by parenting magazines, and the walls are decorated with annoyingly cheerful signs exhorting witches to “Breastfeed your baby! Mum’s milk is magic!” and other inanities.

Draco glances sidelong at Astoria, seated in her soothing blue chair as if it’s a throne. She’s five months gone, but she’s every bit as fashionable and made up as ever, baby bump or no. 

Merlin wept, but she’s an ice princess. 

The thought brings a smile to Draco’s lips. Pot, meet cauldron. Astoria is, in pretty much every regard, his perfect match. She’s cold, she’s proper, and she can reduce a room to quaking sycophants with one well-timed arch of her manicured brow. As Mrs. Malfoys go, the latest incarnation is quite a suitable addition. 

The fact that Draco’s hopelessly queer notwithstanding, of course.

The marriage is an utter charade. So far, it has been mutually satisfying to both parties. Draco has no complaints about his wife; she’s shrewd, classy, and generally easy to talk to over the morning tea and toast when he bothers to show up for it. She always looks beautiful on his arm, and if it ever irritates her that he comes home many nights smelling of sex and other men’s cologne, she never mentions it. And if the only sex they’ve had was during the months they were trying to conceive, and then only when Draco was intoxicated to the gills and fucking her from behind with his eyes spelled shut, she never once mentions that, either. 

The nurse looks almost nervous when she peers into the waiting room and quavers out, “Mrs. Astoria Malfoy?” It’s equal parts heinous and amusing, how much weight the Malfoy name carries. After the war, Lucius had done his six months in Azkaban and then reappeared, haughty as ever and in full-on damage control mode. He’d donated countless Galleons to charity, attended all the right events, and exerted just the right amount of force on the weaker members of the Wizengamot to ensure that the Malfoy name, tarnished though it was, could be restored to its former glory. And it, for the most part, was. Harry Potter’s earnest testimony at court had paved the way, and the Malfoy charm—considerable, when being applied with a purpose—had done the rest. 

Draco stands, holding out a gallant arm to Astoria and shooting her a smile. Today is their visual spell appointment. They are going to see their baby for the first time. 

Healer Edmunds’ arrival into their exam room is prompt; she might be the most sought after obstetric Healer in England, but she is also on time. Draco appreciates her for it—and figures it makes her a better person than he, since he relishes in making his business associates wait for him to grace them with his presence. He supposes maybe such a clear display of power isn’t necessary in a Healer/patient relationship. 

“Hello, hello,” Edmunds says, brisk and efficient and somehow comforting in her businesslike competency. She runs through a litany of questions that Astoria answers, then waves her wand through a number of weighing, measuring, and other diagnostic spells before finally lifting Astoria’s jumper and revealing the little globe of her belly. 

“All right, then. Dad, come here, please,” Edmunds says. Draco raises his eyebrows but complies. Edmunds must have balls the size of Bludgers up her skirt. She’s the only person at St. Mungo’s who doesn’t call him Mr. Malfoy, let alone something as pedestrian as 'Dad.' He likes that about her. 

“We’ll get a clearer picture if you’re involved, so place your hands here, on either side of Mum’s belly,” Edmunds says, directing Draco’s hands to Astoria’s abdomen. Draco settles his palms down to cup his wife’s stomach, thinking archly that this is probably the most intimately he’s ever touched her. Her skin is warm, and to his delight the baby flutters against his palm.

Edmunds nods in silent approval and waves her wand a few times until an image begins to glow above Astoria’s belly. And there, suddenly, is the child. A tiny, perfect, fascinating little person. 

“Congratulations, Mum and Dad. You have a baby girl,” Edmunds says, her voice warm. 

Draco flashes a big, stupid smile at her. A daughter. No more Malfoy sons. It’s sort of frightening how much that relieves him. This little girl—this sweet, perfect little girl—can grow up with all the benefits of the Malfoy vaults and none of their grinding weight. She can marry whomever she pleases and _her_ children will never know what it is like to be a Malfoy, never know what it is like to carry around that noble curse of a name.

“A daughter?” Astoria’s cold, clear soprano brings Draco out of his thoughts. “Is she healthy?”

“Yes, Madam, a lovely little girl.” Edmunds casts a stasis spell on the image and retreats from her patients. “I’ll step out and give you two a moment to admire her. While I’m gone I’ll be reading your genetic test results, but rest assured that she looks just as she’s supposed to.” 

Draco doesn’t even hear the door shut behind the Healer when she leaves, so enthralled is he with the little apparition hovering over Astoria’s belly. 

* 

“Shut up, Astoria.” Draco’s voice is flat, and he is so fucking tired. 

“Don’t you dare talk to me that way. Don’t you _dare_.” Astoria’s voice is cracking.

Draco just stares at her, and she ploughs on. “You can’t be serious, Draco.” She wraps her hand around the potion on the table in front of them. “You know we have to do this. If anyone should be so upset, it’s me. I’m the one that’s carried it this long.”

“ _Her_. You are carrying _her_.”

“A Squib, Draco! You can’t possibly think I’m going to carry this child to term! It’s—it’s—"

“Maybe the test is wrong,” Draco interrupts.

Astoria snorts. “You know it’s not. Look, it’s better anyway. She really should have been a son, and now that something’s wrong with the pregnancy, we can just terminate and try again.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with the pregnancy.” 

“No, there’s something wrong with the foetus!” 

Draco stares at his hands, flustered. Today has, simultaneously, been the best and worst day of his life. When Healer Edmunds had returned from reading their test results, she’d informed them that their child, their beautiful, perfect little girl whose image Draco had been entranced by, was, with about ninety-six percent accuracy, going to be born a Squib. 

A Squib. A Malfoy child who can’t do magic. A pure-blood wizard with the finest bloodstock in all of bloody England who will be more at home in Muggle London than Malfoy Manor. Hearing it had felt like the strongest stunning spell on Earth. 

It still feels that way now, twelve horrendous hours later. 

“I want her,” Draco finally says, knowing his voice sounds as petulant as a child. 

“You cannot be serious. What would we—how would we even raise her? There’s something _wrong_ with her. Do you know what her life would be like? We have to end this, Draco. We have to. Tonight. You heard the Healer. The sooner, the better.” 

At this moment, Draco hates Astoria. It’s a novel feeling. He may hate fucking her, he may even hate being forced into this sham of a marriage with her, but he’s never hated _her_ before. 

“No.” 

“What do you mean, no?” Astoria looks up at him, her beautiful face cool and impassive in the way that only a lifetime of extreme privilege can produce. “This is not your decision, Draco.” 

Draco feels his brows disappear beneath the sweep of blond hair over his forehead. “Oh, no? That’s not my child, then?” 

“It’s not your body! It’s mine! This is my choice, Draco—“ 

“Stop it. Don’t pull that ‘my body, my choice’ shit with me, Astoria. This has nothing to do with witches’ rights and you bloody know it.” 

Astoria stands, the potion still gripped in her fingers. “I am not having this child, Draco. I am not. A gay husband and a Squib for a child—I won’t do it, Draco.” 

*

It’s been two days since their appointment when Draco finds himself back at St. Mungo’s, back in Healer Edmunds’ office. 

“I don’t want her to take the potion,” he says, face settled in hard lines.

“Legally, you know, you don’t have a choice.” Edmunds replies, looking at him over tented fingers. 

“No, Astoria gets all the _choices_ here, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, frankly, she does. The burden of choice falls to the pregnant partner. As it should, Mr. Malfoy.”

“I have no rights to my child, then?” 

Healer Edmunds fixes a speculative gaze on him. “Not unless you want to carry the child,” she finally says. 

Draco stares at her. “Bit late for that, isn’t it?” Male pregnancy is not a complete unknown in the wizarding world, but it’s complicated, not to mention uncertain and expensive. And anyway, it’s no longer an option. 

“Not entirely. Two successful cases of a transfer of foetus have occurred. I’m surprised you haven’t read about them, given your interest in potions, actually,” Edmunds begins.

“Fertility potions are a bit outside my area,” Draco snaps.

“Yes, well. In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that there have been two cases—both Swiss—in which a foetus has been successfully transferred from one carrier to another. Both cases involved mothers who became ill—fatally so—and the fathers completing the pregnancy.” 

“So you’re telling me I could carry the baby the rest of the term.” Draco barks out dry laughter. “You can’t be serious.” 

“You know wizard pregnancy is perfectly within the realm of the possible,” Edmunds replies, never breaking her brisk formality. “The transfer is difficult, and not something I have any expertise in whatsoever. If you were to decide to take that option, you’d be assigned to another healer—Peter Smith, he specializes in wizard pregnancy. And I can’t tell you it would be successful. A transfer at this late stage in the pregnancy would be incredibly hard on your body. But it is an option, and as your healer I’m required to tell you about it when you ask.” 

Draco gives a stiff nod. “Thank you.” 

*

“Is it true?” 

“Is what true?” Harry looks up at Ron, whose eyes are gleaming. 

“Malfoy’s wife is pregnant with a Squib!” Ron is practically gleeful. 

Harry frowns. “I’ve no idea—and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. Where did you hear that tripe?” 

“Justin Finch-Flechley heard it from Lavender Brown, who heard it from Parvati Patil. Apparently Malfoy and his wife had a big bloody row on the way out of St. Mungo’s.” Ron casts a hopeful look at Harry. “Surely you heard something?” 

“No, I didn’t—and it would be a breach of confidentiality if I had. Astoria is a patient of Healer Edmunds’.”

“Confidentiality, schmonfidentiality. It’s _Malfoy_ ,” Ron insists. 

“Seriously, I haven’t heard anything. It’s probably all rubbish.” 

Ron nods, looking disappointed. “Probably. Still, though. Would have served Malfoy right to have a Squib in his perfect pure-blood family.” 

Harry doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t disagree. It would have been a kind of poetic justice. 

*

“Morning, Harry,” the busty receptionist chirps out when Harry steps off the lift and into the ob-gyn waiting room at St. Mungo’s. 

“Morning, Yvette.” Harry flashes her a smile. She’s a plump divorcee teetering on the brink of middle age, and every year at the Christmas party she gets a little too handsy with him, but Harry still has a soft spot for her. She’s bossy, occasionally inappropriate, and she’s never seemed to care one way or another about the scar on his forehead or his preference for blokes, bless her heart. She is, Harry thinks fondly, sort of like a sexually available version of Molly Weasley. 

His first patient of the day is a nine months pregnant witch who is just itching for a magical induction and “an end to this sodding fucking nightmare,” as she explains to him in great detail the moment he enters the exam room. 

Harry gives her his patented “babies will come when they’re ready, and there’s no reason for us to hurry them along” speech, and she glares daggers at him as she plops her feet into stirrups and yanks up her robes in agitation, positioned for her pelvic exam without so much as a blush. 

Harry’s been an obstetric healer for three years now and trained in the field for three more before that, but it still surprises him how comfortable witches become with flashing their bits by the end of their pregnancy. He suspects if he promised to deliver her baby now, this patient would happily agree to a nude delivery in the middle of the Ministry. 

After a quick exam, Harry gives her the bad news. “Not even a centimetre dilated, maybe twenty-give percent effaced. It’s going to be a while yet.” 

“It’s been nine bloody months,” the witch groans, struggling to a sitting position and ignoring Harry in favour of addressing her stomach directly. “Get the hell out—out, I tell you.” 

Harry smiles, putting on his best healer face. “I’ll see you again next week, Mrs. Everett, if he or she still hasn’t made an appearance. Firecall us if you have any questions at all—and remember, your contractions should be consistently five minutes apart, at least a minute long, before you need to come in.”

“Mark my words,” she says darkly, “this kid will be here before my next appointment, Healer Potter. The next time we see each other, you’ll make me a mum.” The _or else_ goes unspoken. With that, the witch storms out of his office without so much as a backward glance. 

Ah, yes, Harry thinks. This is why one goes into medicine—the joy of helping people, the thrill of being appreciated. 

*

It’s nearly two o'clock in the afternoon before Harry has a chance to sit down and have something akin to lunch—which is actually just a quick sandwich in the break room between patients. 

“Hey, Harry,” his boss calls, catching him the moment his mouth is full.

Harry swallows quickly. “Hey, Healer Smith. How are you?” 

“Good, good. Great, really. We’ve a new patient.”

“Umm. Yeah?” Harry blinks. As part of the most well-regarded obstetric practice in Wizarding England, the office has new patients every day. It hardly merits a conversation. 

“A male,” Smith adds, looking delighted. Healer Smith is the only obstetric healer in England whose research focuses primarily on wizard pregnancy. There have only been three male births in England in the last twenty years, and both were patients of Smith’s. Smith’s focus on wizarding pregnancy is precisely the reason Harry chose to work under him, and is the reason he’s continuing to assist Smith in his research. 

Harry puts down his sandwich, giving Smith his full attention. “Really? Someone looking to conceive, then? I hope you’ll be wanting an assistant healer, yes?” 

“Of course, Harry, and I wouldn’t dream of it being anyone but you,” Smith says warmly. “Not quite a conception case, though. A transfer.”

Harry widens his eyes. Male conception is a tricky ball of wax on its own, but magical foetus transfer is another thing entirely. It’s only been successfully done twice, and never in England. “You’re kidding? Really? That’s fantastic!” He considers for a moment. “Not a gay couple, then? Something wrong with the mother?”

“Not exactly,” Smith says, glancing around and spelling the door of the break room shut before he continues. “You know Draco and Astoria Malfoy, I presume?” 

*

Draco and Astoria are sitting in an exam room again. It's different this time, though. Only a week has passed since everything went to shit, but _nothing_ is the same. 

Their new Healer, Smith, is kind and gentle and, above all, extremely professional. Draco wonders at the resolve it takes to school your face into that kind of nonchalance when you know that your patients are in the beginning stages of what will undoubtedly by the most public and infamous divorce the wizarding world has seen in decades. Perhaps centuries. 

"Okay, then," Smith says, smoothing a hand through his short brown hair and fixing them with a studiously neutral smile. "The transfer is set for Friday morning at eight in the morning. You'll both need to spend Thursday night here, however. Mrs. Malfoy, you'll be given a Sleeping Draught and a few preparatory potions, but your job here is really the easy part. You'll be asleep through the transfer, and after a day of observation you'll be free to go, barring any unforeseen complications." 

Astoria nods once, her face looking carved of granite. Draco has the simultaneous impulse to reach out for her hand and to hex her to pieces. Divorce is strange. 

Smith turns his empathetic brown eyes to Draco. "Unfortunately for you, Mr. Malfoy, the transfer is a bit more difficult." 

"Shocking." Draco can feel his brows lifting. He knows there's no reason to be difficult with Smith, this man who's going to help them, help _him_ , but he can't stop it. 

Smith smiles again, as if he understands Draco's sarcasm completely. This irritates Draco further. "You'll need to start the potions regimen today, Mr. Malfoy," he continues. "We'll be introducing a number of hormones into your system to jumpstart things, and rearrange your organs to make room for the womb."

Draco winces. Fuck if this isn't terrifying. And embarrassing. And just awful. 

Smith notices his expression and nods. "It's not a particularly pleasant process, of course. You'll need to go ahead and check in tonight so we can keep an eye on you throughout the week. You shouldn't be in any actual pain, however. It's just uncomfortable, and the hormones can be a bit much to handle. But rest assured, Mr. Malfoy, you'll be in the best of hands. Whenever I'm with other patients, my assistant will be with you whenever he can." 

*

Draco's room at St. Mungo's is, thankfully, private. He would have thrown a tantrum to beat the band if it hadn't been. Mediwitches, all contractually bound to secrecy with strong magic, have hovered over him most of the afternoon, and he's forced down more potions than he cares to remember. Now, finally, he's alone, sitting propped up in bed with a tray of what passes for dinner in front of him. 

He reaches out, fiddles with the tray and pokes at a lumpy chicken breast. He's not hungry. 

It's not that he's nauseous, per se. Not exactly. But his whole abdomen is tender and bloated, strange to the touch. Smith assures him this is normal, that his body is retaining fluids and organs are shifting. 

It's bloody weird, and Draco feels a little bit like a crazy science experiment, like he should be hidden away in the dungeon of a mad Potions Master instead of here in the antiseptic St. Mungo's maternity ward. 

Fucking Astoria. Cunt. This is all her fault. 

He's begun picking apart his dinner roll when there's a tap at his door. Before he can answer, it opens, and Harry Potter stands before him, looking ridiculous in lime green healer robes that are too big for him. 

Merlin's sake, can't the man find clothes that fit him now? He's like a perma-orphan. 

"You've got the wrong room, Potter." 

"Actually, I don't," Harry says, ambling into the room and shutting the door behind him. "I'm Healer Smith's assistant." 

"You're shitting me," Draco says flatly. "You've got to be." 

"Nope, not in the least," Harry says, sounding pleased. 

"No one warned me about this," Draco begins, and Harry cuts him off. 

"Smith's the only healer in England who can help you, so it wouldn't have made a difference even if you'd known. Not like you could go to someone else. You're stuck with me." Harry shrugs, looking sort of half-sympathetic and half-amused. "Sorry, Malfoy. I know you'd prefer someone else." 

"Anyone else." Draco rolls his eyes. "But this seems about right—perfectly in keeping with this whole fucking nightmare. What can I do for you, Potter? Sample of some bodily fluids? Strip naked? What?" 

Harry grins. "Nah, nothing like that. I just came to check on you, see how you're doing with the potions. I hear they're awful." He shuffles closer, takes a seat beside Draco's bed. "Also, you need to eat your food, not play with it." He gestures to the little hunks of bread adorning Draco's tray. "I know it's probably not what you're used to, but you really need it." 

"Not hungry," Draco mutters. 

"Too bad. Do it for the baby. She'll need it." 

Draco flinches a little, keeping his eyes downcast. Somehow the mention of the baby is mortifying, and the fact that Harry seems so bloody comfortable is all the more disconcerting. 

Harry goes on for a moment, expounding on how men’s body fat percentages are typically so much lower than women’s that it makes pregnancy difficult, and Draco is particularly thin, which compounds the issue. It all seems so real and so frightening that Draco quits listening, opting instead to reflect on just how fucking _surrea_ l this entire farce has become. 

"You know," Harry ventures a bit later, "I think what you're doing is really great." 

"Thanks, Potter. I needed your seal of approval." 

"Of course you don't. I'm just saying I admire it." Harry's voice is even and calm, and nothing like the bumbling kid Draco remembers from Hogwarts, or even shortly after the war when he was forced into making speeches here and there. Killing a Dark Lord hadn't done much for Harry's confidence, but apparently a few years as a healer has. 

"Thank you," Draco says stiffly. 

"You're welcome. So you feel like shit yet?" Harry is chipper as he changes the subject, and when Draco looks up at him he's grinning easily, as if he thinks perhaps Draco deserves a little discomfort. It's strangely soothing. 

Draco grimaces. "Yes. I'm…squishy," he says, gesturing to his midsection. 

Harry laughs and stands up, pushing Draco's tray back and reaching toward his abdomen. "May I?" 

Draco nods. What the hell—if Harry's assisting in this fiasco, Draco might as well get used to the Boy Who Saved Everyone's Arse running his hands all over him. 

Harry mutters a spell, and the St. Mungo's gown parts to reveal Draco's stomach, which was flat and toned this morning and now looks as if he's drunk a gallon or two of water. Harry lays his hands, which are surprisingly cool, onto his lower belly and prods gently. 

"Ouch, prat!" 

"Does it really hurt, or is it just tender?" 

"Tender," Draco admits. 

"Everything's shifting," Harry explains, even though he must know Draco's heard this already. Harry presses lightly at the area below Draco's navel. "The magical womb is already forming. That's what hurts a bit. And you're retaining water, of course."

"Of course." Draco rolls his eyes. "I already feel fat." 

Harry snickers. "You should get used to that for awhile." 

"I hate you, Potter." 

Harry grins at him, and Draco's a little surprised by the open friendliness of Harry's gaze. They've never exchanged more than tense nods in the years since the war. "You'll hate me more when you're nine months into this thing." 

"Ugh." Draco flaps his hands at Harry's. "That's enough, Potter. Stop molesting me." 

Harry snorts, then says another spell that sets Draco's gown to rights. He plops back down in his chair. "Eat something and I'll leave you alone," he says. 

"Fine." Draco stabs at the chicken on his plate and takes a few bites. Silence falls, and it feels awkward to Draco, but Harry seems content, flipping through the charts in his hand and humming to himself. 

"So how did you end up an obstetric healer?" Draco asks, mostly just to break the silence but also because he's curious. He figured the Boy Wonder would have wanted to go directly into the Aurors after the war, continue his heroics right on into adulthood. 

Harry looks up, appraising Draco for a moment as if he's unsure if he should answer the question. Apparently finding nothing overtly malicious about Draco's expression, he relaxes a bit. "I wanted to help people, but I was tired of violence. I never want to see it again. Never." His voice is a little vehement, and Draco raises his brows, but Harry continues. "You know I spent a lot of time with Poppy taking care of me at Hogwarts"—Draco snorts at this, and Harry ignores him—"and I figured maybe I could do this, too. Help people when they need help without having to go out and play hero all the time." 

"Seems a little cerebral for you, Potter." Draco means what he says, and it sounds like an insult but he's not sure he really means it that way. Just seems like healing would be more of a Ravenclaw's cup of tea, not a brash Gryffindor. 

Harry shrugs. "Hermione helped me through the theoretical training. Honestly, it was a nightmare. But the actual work—it’s good, you know. And obstetrics is fun." 

"Cute little babies and all that?" Draco rolls his eyes. 

"Believe me, most of my days are spent being yelled at by angry pregnant witches." Harry laughs, and the sound is warm and surprisingly happy. "But then their babies come, and they're happy, and it was worth it to them, you know—and I get to be the person that helps them do it. It's. . . ." Potter pauses, as if he's looking for the right word. "It's satisfying. It's not saving the world, maybe, but it's bringing more children into it, another witch or wizard. Maybe that's heroic, too." 

Draco stares for a moment. He's never heard Potter wax philosophic before. Then it strikes him, a blow that nearly knocks his breath away, and he remembers himself. "Or a Squib. Anything heroic about bringing a Squib into the world, Potter?" There is so much sudden anger in his voice, and he turns it on Harry because he doesn't know where else to put it. 

"Yes." Harry's voice is emphatic, and he forces Draco to make eye contact with him. "I'd say there's everything heroic about it." 

*

Harry’s used to being excited when he delivers a baby. It’s an exciting event—and one that he’s self-aware enough to recognize is particularly meaning-laden for him, the wizarding world’s most famous orphan. The idea of family, of birth, of legacy, it’s all so achingly _real_ to him. 

So he’s used to feeling that happy tension, that good kind of anxiety, when he goes to work and knows he’ll be doing something besides routine exams that day. 

What he’s less accustomed to is the kind of nauseating anxiety he’s feeling now, as he stands next to Healer Smith and watches him prep for the transfer of the Malfoy heir-to-be from mother to father. There are so many ways this can go wrong, and Harry’s studied the process enough to know all those myriad paths to failure. 

If he’s this frightened, he can only imagine what Malfoy must feel like. Not that he’d deigned to confide in Harry, of course. 

Harry had come in at five this morning, before Draco had been put to sleep for the procedure, and he’d been struck by the realization that there was no one in the waiting room. No Lucius and Narcissa, no Parkinson, no Zabini, no Goyle—no one, just Draco, lying there looking as white as the sheet pulled up to his chin. 

“Do you want me to owl for someone to be here when it’s finished?” Harry had finally asked, thinking that no one should have to go through something like this alone. 

Draco had looked up at him, eyes glittering like cut glass, and waved one thin, aristocratic hand toward the bed to his left, where Astoria lay in a charmed sleep. “Who else would I need, Potter? My darling wife is right here beside me.” 

Draco’s posh voice had sounded so bitter it hurt to hear it, and Harry had turned away before the pity showed on his face. 

Now it is easier to look at Draco, since he’s been given a heavy dose of Dreamless Sleep. He looks beautiful and peaceful in rest, sharp eyes closed, lashes fanning out, smirking mouth relaxed and lips just barely parted. Harry thinks this is probably the first time he’s ever looked at Malfoy, really _looked_ at him, in his whole life. He’s . . . pretty. 

And if he were awake, he’d be hexing Harry for applying such an adjective to him, Harry is certain. The thought brings a tiny smile to his lips, and he admires Draco a moment more before turning back to Healer Smith, who is ready to begin. 

“Wand up, Harry,” Smith says, voice calm and steady, looking every bit in control. “You’ll hold the stasis charm over Mr. Malfoy from beginning to end. When I introduce the foetus into his body, the charm _will _waver, so pay close attention. It’s imperative that no processes are disturbed.”__

__Harry doesn’t roll his eyes, even if he wants to. He vanquished fucking Voldemort; surely Smith knows he can hold a damn stasis charm. It _is_ a little creepy, though, holding Draco’s body in absolutely stillness, like a kind of artificial death. For the duration of the procedure, Draco’s heart will not beat. He will be, in essence, frozen in time. _ _

__And then, like most big events, it begins with surprisingly little fanfare, and Harry holds his stasis charm as Smith works. The wandwork over Astoria’s belly is complicated, and Harry doesn’t bother trying to memorize the movements as he watches. Smith is going to Apparate the child from Astoria to Draco—no mean feat, considering he won’t be physically touching the foetus at all. Harry understands the principles of the magic behind the Apparition aspect of the procedure fairly well, he supposes. It’s the other mechanics, like the severing of one umbilical cord and the connection of another, that still faze him. It’s fascinating—and, to a wizard like Harry, raised by Muggles, still a little unbelievable._ _

__Harry doesn’t even realize Smith has begun the Apparition until his wand jerks and the stasis spell shivers. Harry refocuses before Smith can say anything, and he feels a solitary bead of sweat trail down his forehead. Smith’s incantations are still coming fast and furious, and then without warning Draco’s midsection expands, the sudden swelling grotesque and fascinating._ _

__“Got it,” Smith whispers, still not looking up. “Now the cord.”_ _

__More spells. More wandwork. The drop of sweat trickles beneath Harry’s glasses and falls into the corner of his eye, stinging horribly. He doesn’t even blink, afraid to look away from his task. His wand is vibrating with the energy it’s requiring to hold the stasis spell._ _

__Smith falls silent, relaxes his wand arm for a moment, and then looks up at Harry. “Drop the stasis, son.”_ _

__Harry does as he’s told, relishing the paternal endearment as he does it._ _

__Draco’s chest moves in an incremental rise, and Harry breathes a sigh of relief. He’s alive, anyway._ _

__“Well, let’s see if we pulled it off,” Smith says in a sort of _holy-shit-this-could-explode-at-any-moment_ voice that reminds Harry absurdly of Fred Weasley when he would invent a new Wheeze product. Smith waves his wand in a familiar incantation for the visual spell, and an image forms over Draco’s suddenly rounded belly. A perfectly formed twenty-one-week-old foetus lays curled in the amniotic sac. Without thinking to ask Smith for permission, Harry casts a prenatal _Sonorus_ and her tiny heartbeat is amplified through the room, quick as a snitch’s wings. _ _

__Smith looks at Harry and they both grin—and neither mentions that the other has tears in his eyes._ _

__*_ _

__When Draco wakes up, he’s never been so scared in his life. Standing on the Astronomy Tower and holding Dumbledore at wandpoint, watching Charity Burbage breathe her last, shuffling forward on his knees to Voldemort to receive his Mark—all of it was easier than waking up with this thing inside him, realizing suddenly that he is _all alone_. _ _

__His belly looks huge, and it’s grotesque, somehow, all wrong. He feels off-balance when he gets up from the bed and hobbles over to the loo to look at himself in the mirror. The man that looks back at him looks nothing like Draco Malfoy. He’s pale and sickly, which yes, is sort of typical, but he’s also monstrous, the straight lines of his body interrupted with this strange tumour of a belly that is rock hard to the touch and covered with red lines. They’re stretch marks, Draco realizes, and how the fuck is that fair, when Astoria hadn’t had any when she was the one carrying the baby._ _

__Draco stares at himself until he retches, turning to the toilet behind him and throwing up again and again, heaving until there’s nothing left, then heaving some more._ _

__When it’s over he gets up, washes his face and brushes his teeth. Straightens his back and walks out of the loo._ _


	2. Chapter 2

It’s the day Draco is to be discharged from St. Mungo’s that everything falls apart again.

It’s early morning, not quite eight, and Draco is drinking tea and waiting for his discharge papers. He’s been in hospital two weeks and he’s ready to go home—so ready, in fact, that he’s composing a list of Things To Do as soon as he is ensconced in the Manor again. He’ll contact his solicitor, first of all, and get the broom moving on the divorce proceedings. He’s going to make a generous settlement offer, he’s decided. There’s an estate in Cornwall that the Malfoys never use; she can have it. And the London flat—she decorated it, she picked it out, he has no desire to use it, anyway. He suspects their solicitors will dicker over the Galleons per year she’ll want in alimony, but he doubts he’ll lose too much in the deal. After all, she has no children with which to bargain, and he’s being more than generous with property. 

Then he’ll move on to dealing with his parents. They’ve been on the Continent all winter, will be for another month. Since the war, they’ve spent at least half of each year in the South of France, so Draco has a bit of a reprieve, but he knows better than to relax his guard. Dealing with them first by owl may be the best tactic. Breaking the news to his father when a body of water stands between them seems . . . prudent. 

And after that—well, after that he’ll have to think about It, won’t he. The pregnancy. The baby. _His _baby. But right now there are other things, pressing matters, and he is content to ignore the bump in his lap, the squirmy feelings in his belly that remind him that he isn’t alone. If he doesn’t think about it, if he works very hard, he can forget it.__

__It’s while he is composing his To Do List that it happens. An orderly arrives with the mail and leaves Draco a copy of the _Prophet_ and an embossed envelope from Astoria’s solicitor. _ _

___Astoria’s solicitor._ _ _

__As he’s reading it, Potter strolls in, dense and cheerful as ever. “Going home today, eh, Malfoy?”_ _

__Draco looks up at him, letting the scroll fall to his lap. He doesn’t respond, and it is with only a dull comprehension that he realises his monitoring spells are going off, sounding an alarm to indicate to the staff that his vital signs are exhibiting stress._ _

__Potter scrambles toward him, the stupid smile falling from his face, and then his hands are everywhere, Potter’s hands and his wand, and a mediwitch’s hands, and her wand, and then Healer Smith, too. He can dimly hear them asking him what’s wrong, but before he can answer he faints._ _

__*_ _

__When Draco wakes up, Harry is sitting at his bedside, leafing idly through a Quidditch magazine. “Hey, Malfoy.”_ _

__“Potter.” Draco blinks at him, then closes his eyes again. “Why are you here, Potter? You babysitting me fulltime now?”_ _

__“Nah,” Potter says, still flipping through the magazine pages with an irritating ruffle. “My shift ended half an hour ago.”_ _

__Draco opens one eye, peering at Potter. “Then why are you here?”_ _

__Harry shrugs. “I’m interested in your case. You know that. Smith’s making the call on whether or not to send you home when he finds out you’ve woken up. I want to see what he says.”_ _

__“I need to go home,” Draco says, suddenly awake and alert. “I need to go home immediately.” He feels a panic start to seize him again, and it’s all he can do to keep calm as he looks around for the letter from the solicitor. He finally sees it on the table beside him and doesn’t bother to disguise his relief._ _

__“What’s in the letter that’s so important?” Harry asks, as if it’s any of his sodding business._ _

__Draco sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose in an expression that he knows makes him look like his father. “Astoria’s divorcing me,” he mumbles, too tired to figure out a suitable evasion._ _

__Harry gives him a careful nod. “Okay.” He fiddles with the magazine some more, drumming his fingers on its glossy pages. “Umm. I thought that was. Well, you know, that was the—uh, the plan?”_ _

__Draco grimaces at Harry’s diction. It’s terrible. “It’s not the divorce I’m opposed to, Potter.”_ _

__“Oh. Well, then. Er—what is it?”_ _

__“You’re not going to leave if I ignore you, are you?” Draco doesn’t bother to wait for a reply before he continues. “She’s giving me an ultimatum. Either I keep secret the fact that Astoria is the baby’s m—uh—other parent or she—“ Draco flinches here, pausing. The truth is that Astoria is threatening to tell the _Prophet_ all about his male lovers if he claims that the child he carries is the offspring of their union, but Draco sees no reason tell Potter all that. “She doesn’t want her name associated with the child, Potter,” he finally says. “She’s making . . . threats.” _ _

__Harry looks at him for a moment, then shrugs. “Who cares, then? If I were you I wouldn’t want her anywhere near my daughter. Bully for her if she wants no legal connection.” Potter nods, buoyed up by his firm convictions, his unerring moral compass._ _

__Draco yearns to hex him between the eyes._ _

__“It’s not that simple, _Potter_.” All Draco’s fury is poured into Potter’s name, and it comes out as a snarl. “If I don’t disclose Astoria as the mother, the child is a bastard.” _ _

__“A bastard?” Harry narrows his eyes to slits. “That’s fine talk, coming from her father. How could you even think that? If this is some stupid pure-blood thing—“_ _

__“Shut up,” Draco interrupts. “It’s not—I mean, yes, pure-bloods do take lineage seriously. You know that. But it’s more than that. I can’t name her my heir if she’s a bastard.”_ _

__“Quit calling her that! And for Merlin’s sake, Malfoy, who can tell you if she’s your heir or not? That’s the problem with those old families—“_ _

__“Again, Potter, shut _up_. You have no idea what you’re talking about. The entire Malfoy estate can tell me she’s not my heir. There’s a clause in all the family documents saying that only children born of wedlock in the Malfoy line can inherit.” Draco sighs, feeling suddenly weary. “It was supposed to be a good thing, I think. Prevent some old Malfoy patriarch centuries ago from getting mad at his wife and kids and naming one of his by-blows heir to the whole damn thing.” _ _

__Harry just looks at him for a moment, and Draco thinks he can actually see Harry putting the pieces together. “So Astoria is threatening you with . . . . something . . . if you try to name this baby your heir, which by default would mean naming Astoria as the mother.”_ _

__“Brilliant deduction, Potter. Aces, really. The Aurors lost out on something special when you went into healing.”_ _

__*_ _

__Draco has been home a week when the story breaks._ _

__It makes the front page, above the fold. _ **Malfoy Heir Served Divorce Papers:Astoria Malfoy nee Greengrass Cites Fraud.**___

__Below the screaming, flashing headline are two photos, one of Draco and one of Astoria, each taken separately as they are exiting St. Mungo’s. Astoria looks pale but essentially well. And Draco, thank god, is Glamoured to the gills, looking straight and thin as he always does, even though Draco knows from the robes he’s wearing that the photo was taken a few days ago._ _

__The article is palpably gleeful in tone._ _

____**Bucking pure-blood tradition, the heir to the Malfoy fortune was served with divorce papers earlier this week. The documents, filed with the Ministry and a matter of public record, show that Astoria Malfoy, formerly Greengrass, cited fraud as grounds for the suit. One can only wonder what the Malfoy heir must have concealed from his wife of three years to justify such a claim. Several off-the-record sources assure us at the**_ **Prophet _that the concern is not money, as the Malfoy fortunes weathered the war intact, leaving this reporter to consider more personal problems. Astoria was known to be expecting the couple’s first child, but subjects close to the family say she is no longer pregnant. As both Draco and Astoria were seen exiting St. Mungo’s on multiple occasions within the last month, perhaps the young couple’s inability to produce an heir is at the heart of their marriage woes. As the story breaks, we at the_ Prophet _will continue to follow events closely._**__ _

__Draco doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In a strange way, the _Prophet_ is close to hitting on the truth. The problem of heirs is certainly at the heart of the divorce. _ _

__All he can think is thank god. Thank god his Glamour holds up so well, even in the photo, thank god Astoria hasn’t gone to the press about his . . . proclivities, thank god it isn’t worse than it is._ _

__That is, he thinks that until the Floo fires up, green and somehow seething, and Lucius steps out onto the Aubusson and stalks across the parlour to where Draco is lying on a sofa, clad in his pyjamas without even a hint of a Glamour over his belly._ _

__“What the fuck is this?” Lucius is waving a copy of the _Prophet_ as he strides toward Draco, and Draco curses the fucking long-distance owls the _Prophet_ employs to deliver the paper across the Channel. Bloody things are fast. _ _

__Draco watches as his father’s tirade grinds to a halt. At this point, there’s nothing he can do but wait it out, sit there while his father stares at him, at his freak body and his sick complexion and the whole disastrous mess._ _

__“Draco.” Lucius’ voice is silky and dangerous, reminding Draco of the times he was in trouble as a child. “What the fuck is going on?”_ _

__Draco pushes himself up out of his sprawl, hating that he can’t seem to move more gracefully. “You are, sadly, losing a daughter-in-law,” he drawls, making a lazy gesture toward the paper in his father’s hand and forcing himself not to panic. Not in front of his father. He won’t._ _

__Lucius narrows his eyes, and Christ, if Draco were a child he thinks he might pee his pants. “That is no longer my primary concern, _son_.”_ _

__Draco struggles to take a deep breath. His lungs won’t seem to fill, and part of it is just terror, but part of it is the damn baby, wedged up under his ribs like a tenacious little Bludger._ _

__“Well. You know Astoria conceived,” he says dumbly._ _

__Lucius’ response is blunt and angry. “Yes. So why is it that _you _look pregnant?”___ _

___“Umm.” Draco swallows. He never stammers. Never. “Because I sort of am,” he concludes._ _ _

___“Sort of?” Lucius’ voice is becoming so low Draco finds himself leaning forward to hear. This is not a good sign._ _ _

___“There was a transfer. Only the third one to be successful ever,” Draco says, absurdly thinking that maybe that little fact will put a positive spin on the situation._ _ _

___“Why, pray tell, was my grandson _transferred_ anywhere?” _ _ _

__Oh, Lucius is seething now. Draco bites back the ridiculous urge to giggle and blurt out, _Not a grandson, Dad! Whoops! Fucked this one up but good, didn’t I?_ _ _

__“Astoria wanted to take an abortive potion,” Draco begins, thinking it’s a good place to start, as it is the truth—sort of._ _

__Lucius’ cane is tapping out a dangerous little staccato rhythm against one highly polished boot. “Continue, Draco.”_ _

__“So I decided—well.” Draco makes a vague, sweeping gesture in the direction of his belly. “You see.”_ _

__“Draco Abraxus. Explain yourself before I tire of this conversation.”_ _

__The cane is tapping faster now, and Draco wonders if he wouldn’t be hexed already if he weren’t currently housing the next Malfoy heir._ _

__“The-baby-is-a-Squib,” he mumbles, refusing to look down._ _

__Lucius looks absolutely blank. “Pardon me?”_ _

__“A Squib,” Draco repeats. “The tests are something like ninety-six percent accurate.”_ _

__“My grandson is a Squib.” Lucius sounds like he’s been hit over the head with a Bludger._ _

__Might as well go for the gold here. “Granddaughter,” Draco corrects._ _

__Gender apparently takes a backseat to magical ability, and Lucius doesn’t appear to register this latest disappointment. “Astoria wanted an abortive potion. And you instead decided to—er. Finish the pregnancy.” Lucius sounds as if it demeans him just to say it._ _

__“Yes,” Draco says helpfully, although it didn’t really sound like a question._ _

__“And so Astoria served you with divorce papers.”_ _

__“Right.”_ _

__“And she cited fraud because she has the audacity to question _our_ bloodlines? As if it’s not the fucking upstart Greengrass blood that’s caused this—this aberration?”_ _

__Draco pushes himself off the sofa, trying his best to look as if he’s doing it without a bowling ball strapped to his midsection. He should probably try being eye-level with Lucius for the rest of this. “I don’t think that’s—“_ _

__Lucius interrupts him before he has a chance to finish. “Because I will tell you right now that the Malfoy lines do _not_ throw Squibs. Ever.” Lucius pauses, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear and fixing his son with a stare holding the venom of a thousand basilisks. “And you—what the fuck are you thinking? Astoria was absolutely right. Something is wrong with that—foetus. Greengrass blood tainting it, no doubt, and she was quite right about the abortion. This is asinine—“ _ _

__Draco cuts him off, sensing that his father is preparing for a lengthy harangue. “I wanted her,” he says. It’s simple, but it’s the truth. “I’m her father.”_ _

__Lucius snorts. “Do we even know that? Maybe that little slut was sleeping around. That would certainly explain a lot.”_ _

__Draco winces. “No. It’s mine.”_ _

__“No, it’s not. You are not keeping this child, Draco. Divorce the girl, I don’t care, we’ll weather that scandal, but you are _not_ disgracing this house with a Squib.”_ _

__Before Draco can answer, Lucius whirls back toward the fireplace. “Fix this, Draco. Fix it quickly. Your mother and I will extend our stay in France until this is . . . resolved.”_ _

__The fire flares green, and Lucius’ voice is tight as he grinds out, “Chateau Chamboriguad” and disappears._ _

__*_ _

__Winter is beginning to bleed into spring before Harry sees Draco again. Healer Smith is delivering a baby, so it’s Harry who Floos into Malfoy Manor for Draco’s examination._ _

__Harry is a little nervous when he walks into the makeshift exam room that’s been set up in one of the Manor’s many spare bedrooms. Walking into a room with Malfoy always has the potential for unpleasantness._ _

__Harry has to physically restrain himself from gasping when he sees Draco, slumping on the transfigured exam table, already wearing a St. Mungo’s gown._ _

__His eyes, Harry thinks, are the worst part—they are sunk deeper than he’s ever seen them, which is saying something since he spent a lot of time watching Draco during their horrid sixth year at Hogwarts. The flesh below them actually looks bruised, as if he’s sporting two black eyes. His cheeks are hollow, and the bones of his face look sharp enough to cut diamonds._ _

__On his tiny frame, the bulge of his belly looks obscene, like the starving Sudanese kids on the telly commercials._ _

__“Hi, Malfoy,” Harry says, doing his best to pretend he’s not absolutely horrified by Draco’s appearance._ _

__“Potter.”_ _

__Harry flicks his wand through a series of diagnostic spells, and Draco's weight and blood pressure hover in the air in a curving script. “How are you feeling?” Harry flips through Draco’s chart, noting that he hasn’t gained anything since his last appointment._ _

__Draco snorts. “Fucking awful. I look like I’ve got fucking cancer.”_ _

__“A transfer like this is difficult,” Harry says carefully, setting his chart down and leaning against a large armoire that he knows has been magicked into a neat storage space for medical supplies. “Your body is completely unprepared for something like this—frankly, it’s unnatural—and without any extra reserves of energy, the baby is taking everything you’ve got. Have you felt like your magic is being affected, too?”_ _

__Draco shrugs. “I can still cast household charms. Haven’t tried much else.”_ _

__“That’s a good idea.” Harry steps forward, takes Draco’s elbow and guides him back into a supine position. He can tell Draco wants to shake him off but resists the urge. It would be amusing if Draco didn’t look so horribly ill._ _

__“Do you feel the baby move a lot?” Harry questions, casting a _Sonorus_ and bringing the tiny heartbeat to loud, echoing clarity in the high-ceilinged room._ _

__Draco shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “Sometimes.”_ _

__“That’s great. It’s a great feeling, yeah?”_ _

__Draco shrugs again. “I guess.”_ _

__Harry resists the urge to roll his eyes. God, how he hates Malfoy sometimes. Here he is, only the third person ever to be successfully carrying out a transfer, and he doesn’t even seem to appreciate his own good fortune. He tries to bite his tongue, but he can’t. “Aren’t you _happy_? You’re so lucky—“ _ _

__Draco’s eyes snap up to Harry’s face. “What did you just say?” The look in his eyes is murderous. “Because it sounds like you just said I was _lucky_. Jesus fucking Christ, Potter. My bitch of an ex-wife is threatening to ruin me publicly because she doesn’t want to be associated with this child. I’m a fucking freak science experiment and arseholes like you keep saying how bloody wonderful it is that I’m ruining my body in order to carry my Squib daughter—a _Squib_ , Potter. I know that doesn’t mean much to you, with your fucking Mudblood mum, but do you know when this child is born she won’t even be able to cross the threshold of her ancestral fucking home?” Draco’s eyes are dark, snapping with rage, and he spits the words at Harry like curses. “That’s right, Potter—I’ve ten weeks to figure out how to redo the wards to allow non-magical humans through the front fucking gates. A Squib has _never_ set foot in this house. Never. And you have the nerve to tell me I’m _lucky_?”_ _

__When the diatribe ends, Draco pushes himself to his elbows, then awkwardly up and off the exam table. He looks down at the hospital gown as if he’s confused, and Harry knows he wants to make a dramatic exit but he can’t with a hospital gown flapping around his ankles._ _

__“Fuck,” he whispers, and with something like horror Harry sees the tears forming in the corners of Malfoy’s big silvery eyes. “Fuck, Potter. Fuck you.”_ _

__Harry ignores the slur, and before he can help himself he’s reached out, rested his hand on Draco’s narrow shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he means it. Maybe Draco is right—that Harry hasn’t been thinking about the way this whole thing must feel for Draco. The only thing he’s thought about is how wonderful it would be to become a parent, no matter the circumstances. Maybe he’s not been quite fair to Draco. Even if he is a twat._ _

__Draco rubs furious hands at his eyes, and Harry is struck by how childlike the gesture is. Draco looks like a bewildered little boy who’s stayed up past his bedtime. “Well. Thanks for your sympathy, Potter. Really. Are we done here?”_ _

__“No,” Harry says on a whim. “Get dressed, and I’ll meet you—" He pauses, waving his hand in the direction of the door. “Is there somewhere downstairs that isn’t terrifying?”_ _

__Draco snorts, and Harry’s a little surprised. “Breakfast nook,” Draco says. He snaps his fingers, and a house-elf cracks into existence at his side._ _

__“Master Draco, what can Noony be—“_ _

__“Take Potter to the breakfast nook,” Draco interrupts. “I’ll be down directly.”_ _

__The elf nods, turning big eyes at Harry and shooting him a nervous smile, reaching up to adjust the somewhat feminine bow she’s wearing on her head. It tilts crazily off one of her floppy ears, and Harry has the absurd realisation that it appears to be fashioned out of toilet paper. “Master Harry Potter be following Noony now,” she says, and reaches up and grabs his hand before he can say a word._ _

__“Don’t paw him,” Draco snaps, and Noony starts to recoil, but Harry keeps a firm grip on her hand._ _

__“It’s fine, Noony.” He shoots a glare over his shoulder at Draco. Bastard. If he’s this mean to his elves, Harry is nervous to see how he treats a child. Really._ _

__*_ _

__The breakfast nook is indeed the warmest room in the Manor that Harry has ever seen. It overlooks the gardens, which are just beginning to tinge green with the warming weather, and the table is small and intimate, unlike the Malfoy’s monstrous formal dining room._ _

__Noony conjures tea and cakes and fruit trays and biscuits, wringing her hands until Harry agrees to try some of everything. Harry silently thanks god that Kreacher doesn’t seem to give a shit what Harry thinks. Living with a hateful house-elf seems infinitely easier than one like Noony, who is so eager to please that it breaks Harry’s heart a bit._ _

__When Draco comes down a few minutes later, Harry can’t stop his eyes from tracking him across the room. Thirty weeks into the pregnancy, he walks with that curious gait that seems part and parcel of the third trimester, steps slightly wider than normal, back arched awkwardly. Draco’s usually meticulous sartorial choices have given way to what Harry suspects is an if-it-fits-I’ll-wear-it approach to his wardrobe. The sweater he’s wearing over rumpled black trousers is a flattering shade of grey, but it outlines his belly like a second skin and hangs from his shoulders, the cuffs swallowing his wrists. His feet are bare. He looks so vulnerable that for a moment Harry has the urge to tug off his own robe and throw it over Draco’s bony shoulders._ _

__Draco squelches any such comforting designs when he opens his mouth. “Well, spit it out, Potter. What was so important that you couldn’t tell me upstairs?”_ _

__Harry sighs. He really is such an arsehole, even if he looks like an abused crup. “Look—I just—I guess I hadn’t considered how hard this might be for you. I just—er. Do you want to talk about it?”_ _

__Draco’s look is incredulous. “Fuck, Potter. You’re my healer, not my therapist. Don’t kid yourself.” He snorts. “My _assistant_ healer, at that. So if this is all you wanted to say, run along back to St. Mungo’s.” _ _

__“Oh, shut up, Malfoy.” Harry’s patience is wearing thin. “You’re obviously on the verge of losing it. You look like shit, your wife is gone, your parents are wherever the hell it is they disappear to. I don’t know you, but I know pregnant witch—wiz—I know pregnancy, and you aren’t going to make it another ten weeks rattling around here by yourself. You’re ready to cry right now.”_ _

__Draco shifts in his seat, wincing a little as he does. He looks like he wants to say something horrid, like a million stinging insults are on the tip of his tongue, but in the end he just sighs, slumping over and resting his elbows on the table. “I can’t be your project, Potter. No call for a hero here.”_ _

__“Eat something, Malfoy.” Harry shoves a tray of biscuits toward him and pours a cup of tea._ _

__*_ _

__The next week, Harry comes along on the house call with Healer Smith even though he doesn’t have to, and he stays long after Smith is back to the office._ _

__“You know what’s fucked up?” Draco says, apropos of nothing, as they sit across from each other the little table in the nook and eat roast beef sandwiches._ _

__“Having lunch together?” Harry grins._ _

__Draco flaps his hand. “Of course this is fucked up. I mean about the—the baby.”_ _

__Harry raises his eyebrows. Draco has never really mentioned the baby, even as she becomes less and less easy to ignore. “What?”_ _

__“I don’t know what I’ll do with her.”_ _

__“Oh, you’ll figure it out,” Harry says, lapsing into healer tones. “Babies aren’t really so hard. Nappies and the like, it all comes together once—“_ _

__“I’ve got house-elves, Potter, good lord. Who do you think has changed Malfoy nappies for generations?” Draco wrinkles his nose. “We’re not Weasleys, for Merlin’s sake.”_ _

__Harry starts to open his mouth, but Draco ploughs on. “What I’m saying is what will I _do_ with her? Teach her Quidditch? Get her a Potions kit? A practice wand? I don’t know how to be anything but a wizard, Potter.” _ _

__“Why couldn’t you teach her Quidditch?” Harry asks carefully._ _

__“She won’t be able to fucking fly, now will she?” Draco spits._ _

__“She could—she could fly with you. She could go to matches with you.”_ _

__Draco shrugs. “Maybe.”_ _

__*_ _

__When Draco’s due date is in six weeks, Potter stops coming over as his healer and just starts coming over._ _

__Draco wants to tell him to go, to fuck off, to Floo right the fuck back to St. Mungo’s and leave him alone, but he doesn’t. Because he’s _lonely_ , goddamn it, and ever since Healer Smith forbid him from using Glamours he’s been stuck in the Manor by himself. And, despite the rumours which have been running in the _Prophet_ , no one else knows he’s pregnant except Astoria and his parents, none of whom are speaking with him. Potter is not a brilliant conversationalist, but at least he’s another human being, and Draco just can’t quite make himself banish Potter back to the hospital. _ _

__Their conversations are strange, moving back and forth from healer territory to stilted personal discussions and back again. He says Draco needs exercise and they walk through the gardens together, and Draco wants to say that he’s sure Potter doesn’t do this for the rest of his patients, but he doesn’t. Instead they talk about Hogwarts and the House system and how Harry was almost Sorted Slytherin, which Draco finds so funny he has to stop and catch his breath._ _

__Another afternoon they sit on the floor of the library in a patch of sunlight streaming through the big cathedral windows and share tea and croissants that Noony brings them. Draco can’t get comfortable. His back hurts and he’s so damn tired, and his hip bones feel like they’ve been Bludgered._ _

__“Your hips hurt because they’re not designed for this,” Harry says earnestly. “A witch’s would be wider to begin with, and they’d move apart as the baby grew. Yours don’t do that.”_ _

__Draco just looks at him. He’s aware he’s not a fucking witch. Potter’s explanation is not helpful._ _

__“C’mere,” Harry says, standing up in one fluid motion that Draco envies with a burning passion. Harry holds his hand out, and Draco wants to ignore it but it’s either that or flounder around on his own, so he puts on his haughtiest expression and allows Potter to tug him to his feet, pretending all the while that Potter is a house-elf instead of a wizard._ _

__“Sit here,” Harry says, gesturing to a chaise in the corner. Draco sits, and before he can register what’s going to happen Harry is behind him, warm hands on his lower back, rubbing out the knot that has been there for the last month._ _

__“Potter—“ Draco’s voice is partially a warning and partially just a groan. Potter is not supposed to _touch_ him, not like this, not when he’s not doing it for medical reasons. _ _

__“Relax,” Harry says, and when his hands slide around to Draco’s aching hips, Draco gives up and just sags, letting Potter’s hands take his weight._ _

__It is with something like horror that Draco realizes he’s getting hard. He almost laughs out loud when he realizes that his big belly will hide the evidence, and this is perhaps the first time since this whole nightmare began that he’s been grateful to look like he’s swallowed a cauldron._ _

__He’s a little horrified that it’s Potter who’s making his prick hard, but he figures it’s only natural. He hasn’t had sex since the transfer—he’s not exactly in a position to cruise at the moment._ _

__Then he remembers that Potter’s actually gay, and his whole body stiffens._ _

__“What’s wrong?” Harry’s voice is a warm rumble over his shoulder. “Did I hurt you?”_ _

__“No!” Draco squawks. “I mean—no.”_ _

__Harry’s hands still, resting on Draco’s sides. “If this makes you uncomfortable—I mean—“ He pulls his hands away. “I’m sorry. I—I’m sorry.”_ _

__Draco shifts, surreptitiously pushing his cock down before he turns around awkwardly to face Harry. “It’s fine, Potter.”_ _

__Harry doesn’t look convinced. “No, I—I shouldn’t have. I’m, er. You know, just because I’m, uh, gay—I wasn’t trying to hit on you or anything. I know you’re straight. And you’re my—my patient. I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t do that.” Harry’s stammering again, like he does when he’s nervous, Draco knows. It’s funny, Potter hasn’t done that much recently. It’s been nice._ _

__Draco doesn’t quite know what to say, and before he realizes he’s going to say anything at all, the words are tumbling out of his mouth. “I’m not straight.”_ _

__Harry’s eyebrows disappear beneath a messy scraggle of fringe. “Umm. What?”_ _

__“I’m as queer as you are, Potter. Bent. A shirt-lifter. Nancy boy. Sissy. Faggot.” The hurtful words just keep coming, and Draco can’t seem to stop saying them, and goddamn it, this is the fucking worst part about being pregnant, feeling like he’s fucking out of control, and _shit_ , tears are welling up in the corners of his eyes again, and _what the fuck is this even about_? _ _

__Harry sits there, looking gobsmacked, and Draco is blinking furiously._ _

__“But you were married,” Harry finally says._ _

__“Oh, Christ, Potter. You really are so fucking thick.”_ _


	3. Chapter 3

The next time Draco sees Harry, it’s for a prenatal appointment. After Draco’s disastrous coming out, Harry had disappeared for a few days, and now that it’s Friday, his appointment day, Draco is rather surprised when it’s Harry who appears for the exam.

“Hey,” Harry says, shuffling into the spare-bedroom-turned-exam-room. “Smith is delivering twins, so I had to come. I mean—I don’t mind, I’m glad to, it’s just—that’s why he couldn’t be here.”

Draco nods, swinging his feet over the edge of the exam table where he’s already seated. “Fine, Potter.” 

“Your blood pressure’s up,” Harry comments, holding his wand at Draco’s wrist.

“Is that bad?” 

“It’s not good.” Harry wrinkles his nose. “Are you under a lot of stress?”

“Are you seriously asking me that question, Potter?” 

“I mean new stress,” Harry clarifies, looking unapologetic. 

_Let me think, Potter. Oh, yes. My divorce is finalized, and I’m five weeks away from giving fucking_ birth _with my non-existent vagina to my illegitimate child. I feel like shit. I look like shit. I’ve wanked my dick raw over you in the last forty-eight hours._

“My mother Flooed yesterday,” Draco offers, shrugging. “She and Father have been . . . difficult about the current situation.” 

Harry eyes him cautiously. “The divorce?”

Draco rolls his eyes. “The divorce pales in comparison to _this_.” He puts his hands on his belly for emphasis, grimacing. “Squib bastards weren’t what they had in mind for firstborn grandchildren.” 

“Oh.” Harry nods. “Yeah. Umm. I’m sorry.”

“So are they.”

Harry finishes the exam in silence, prodding Draco’s belly, measuring and poking and listening to the baby’s heartbeat while Draco sits, mute and surreal, feeling utterly disconnected from his strange new body.

When Harry appears to be finished, Draco starts to sit up, but Harry steps forward and puts his hand over Draco’s. “The baby’s moving in to position to be born,” he says, grabbing Draco’s palm and pressing it hard against the top of his belly, above his navel. “That’s her bum, that lump right there.”

Draco doesn’t speak, and Harry moves their hands again, this time up nearly to Draco’s rib. “There, that’s a foot.” 

The baby wriggles under Draco’s hand, kicking at him, and Draco’s lip twitches. She’s feisty. 

He looks up at Harry, who has an expression of muted awe on his open, earnest face. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” 

Draco can’t find his voice to answer, and then it doesn’t matter because Harry’s hand has slipped off of his, slid down until it’s resting against the lower curve of his belly, and then Harry’s leaned forward, and his mouth is on Draco’s, his breath warm and gentle. 

Harry Potter is kissing him. 

Draco wants to sit up—maybe to push Potter away, maybe to wrap his arms around Potter’s neck and pull him closer—but he can’t, can’t do anything much but breathe and let Potter’s mouth move over his, soft and tentative as spring crocuses. 

*

“Fuck, Malfoy.” Harry’s voice feels raw, thick in his throat. “Fuck.” 

Draco’s hands are in his hair, pulling at it, holding Harry in place above him. “Yeah, fuck,” he echoes, and he sounds so far away and yet so near.

“I want you,” Harry blurts, and before he makes a conscious decision he’s climbing onto the exam table, one knee on either side of Malfoy’s thighs, straddling him, and _ohgodfuck_ this is against every code, every oath, every vow he’s ever taken as a healer. He leans down over Draco again until his hips are pressed against Draco’s stomach, his face is hovering over Draco’s. 

Draco is staring back up at him and panting, his breath coming in short bursts, his cheeks glowing with two bright, hectic little spots. Harry thinks he’s never seen something so beautiful as Draco Malfoy as he looks right this second, glowing silver eyes ringed with dark circles, skin pale and washed out except for those two bright stains of furious red, lips swollen and pink like a girl’s, jawline starting to blur just a little with water retention. _Shit _. Nothing about that should be so fucking gorgeous but it _is_. All Harry wants to do is pull Draco tight and rock against him in something that is about sex and comfort and urgency all at once. __

__Harry searches Draco’s face, trying to find something there that will tell him what to do. He’s starting to think Draco isn’t going to give him any signals, that he’s just going to lie there panting and staring up at him, but finally Draco shifts, just slightly, and his hands move out of Harry’s hair and around his neck and pull him down. Harry holds himself carefully, propped up with a hand on either side of Draco’s face, and this time when he kisses him, Draco kisses back._ _

__It's almost overwhelming, the sensation of Draco’s mouth against his. He’s demanding, pushing against Harry’s bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth, but he never fully takes control of the kiss, never does more than prod Harry to take the lead. Insistent, bossy shit. It’s just the way Harry would have imagined he would kiss, if his fantasies about Draco—of which there are legion—had included kisses. Which, heretofore, they had not._ _

__“Fuck, Potter,” Draco mumbles against his lips, and the sound of his voice is enough to send a fresh bolt of want down Harry’s already buzzing spine. He kisses him again, harder this time, invading Draco’s mouth, taking what he wants._ _

__Draco moans against him, a needy sound that goes straight to Harry’s cock. He pulls away and stands up, awkwardly pulling off his healer robes and shimmying out of his trousers. Draco stays put on the table, panting, looking frail and undone at once. Suddenly, Harry wants nothing more than to Vanish Draco’s hospital gown, to get rid of it _now _. He can’t stand to look at it another second, the tangible proof that he shouldn’t be doing this. He holds his hand out and Summons his wand without a word, then points it at Draco and casts. The gown disappears, and Draco lets out a shriek.___ _

___“Potter, what the fuck?” Draco whips his arms over his belly, and Harry’s heart clenches at the sight of proud Draco Malfoy trying and failing to cover himself. His prick is brushing against the underside of his stomach, but Draco doesn’t appear to care about that—it’s the map of stretchmarks over the swollen ball of his belly that Draco seems preoccupied with._ _ _

___Harry reaches out, puts his hands over Draco’s and forces Draco to look at him. “Draco, it’s okay.”_ _ _

___Draco shakes his head, pushing at Harry’s hands._ _ _

___“Really—please. “ Harry hears the desperation in his own voice, wonders if Draco hears it, too. “Please don’t do that. Please.”_ _ _

___Draco starts to shake his head again, and Harry grabs his wrists and pulls them away from his body, pins them to the exam table with exaggerated care. “Hush,” he says, shushing Draco like he would a child or a wounded kneazle. “Shh. ‘S okay. You’re okay.”_ _ _

___When Draco finally relaxes under him, Harry lets his hands go, drops them to Draco’s hips and tugs a little. “Slide down,” he whispers, guiding Draco down until his arse is flush at the edge of the exam table. Inappropriate laughter threatens to burst out of Harry’s mouth, and he barely silences it. Of all the times he’s told patients to scoot their bottoms to the edge of the table for an exam, he never imagined that someday he’d tell Draco Malfoy to do the same thing and it would be the most compelling sight he’s ever seen._ _ _

___When he leans over and ghosts his mouth along the length of Draco’s cock, when Draco’s body goes rigid at the contact and he hisses out profanity in his ritzy accent, Harry’s hands tighten uncontrollably on Draco’s hips again. He has to make himself stop, relax, let go before he leaves bruises—what kind of healer would he be if he bruised his patient?_ _ _

___Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, what kind of healer does this to his patient—his very, very pregnant patient?_ _ _

___But Draco’s hips are snapping and Harry’s forehead is flush against Draco’s warm belly and before he can think any further Draco’s voice is echoing in the room, harsh and choked. “Coming, Potter, fuck, coming.”_ _ _

___Minutes later, when Draco’s hand wraps around Harry's cock and cups it in a slow, filthy slide with only dripping precome for lube, Harry feels like he might shatter into a million tiny pieces—and when he sees his own silver-white come splatter all over Draco’s taut, stretchmarked belly, he does._ _ _

___*_ _ _

___When there are four weeks left until Draco’s due date, Healer Smith is at all of his bi-weekly appointments. Harry’s there, too, hovering at his side and looking like he doesn’t know what to do with himself._ _ _

___When Smith leaves, Harry stays. They lie sprawled across Draco’s big bed, wanking each other because Draco can’t quite imagine how to do anything else over his belly and Harry doesn’t seem inclined to push for anything._ _ _

___They never talk about what they’re doing, never even admit it in words, and Draco is reminded of the first sloppy handjobs he exchanged with Blaise in his third year, when Blaise would crawl into his bed late at night and they would frot and jerk and writhe against each other until their orgasms ran dry, and then never speak of it the next day._ _ _

___This with Potter is the first time he’s felt that kind of urgency since he was thirteen._ _ _

___“Are you getting scared?” Harry asks him when the baby is due in two weeks and he’s so uncomfortable he can’t stand it._ _ _

___Draco considers lying but then thinks better of it, wondering what the point would be when Harry is going to be there when the baby comes, is going to see exactly how terrified he is. “Yes.”_ _ _

___“It’s not supposed to be any more painful than female childbirth,” Harry says, tracing patterns on Draco’s inner thigh._ _ _

___“How would anyone ever know that, Potter? No one’s ever done both.”_ _ _

___“Oh. Yeah.”_ _ _

___They’re silent for a while, and then Harry begins to squirm around in the way Draco has begun to recognise as meaning he’s trying to figure out how to say something._ _ _

___“I think Squibs should be able to go to Hogwarts,” Harry finally says._ _ _

___Draco blinks. This is unexpected. “Uh—what? Train with Filch?” His voice is bitter, he can hear it._ _ _

___“No. Think about it. Divinations. History of Magic. Care of Magical Creatures. All the theoretical aspects of Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. Muggle Studies. Even Potions most of the time. None of that requires a wand.”_ _ _

___Draco looks up at Harry, who has clearly considered this. “You don’t think it’s cruel to send a kid without magic to a place like Hogwarts?”_ _ _

___“Muggle schools do something similar all the time. It’s called mainstreaming—kids with special needs go to class with the other kids all the time, it’s good for them—“_ _ _

___Draco snorts. “Special needs.”_ _ _

___“Well, you know—I’m just saying.”_ _ _

___“I’m just saying, it’ll never happen.” Draco rolls his eyes. Fucking Potter. Fucking hero complex._ _ _

___*_ _ _

___Harry likes to drape himself over Draco’s legs and rest his cheek against Draco’s belly, listen to the baby roll and slide beneath him._ _ _

___Draco allows it, although the intimacy of it is overwhelming sometimes. Like somehow he’s more vulnerable with Harry’s head on his belly than he is with his cock in Harry’s hand. But it’s a good kind of vulnerable, maybe. Safe._ _ _

___Whatever it is, when they lie together like this, Draco seems to relax, and sometimes he even talks a little bit. About how he managed to change the wards so that Squibs can enter the Manor—or at least, he thinks so, although he doesn’t actually know any Squibs to test it out. How he’s been talking to his solicitor about setting aside private vaults for the baby, since she won’t inherit any of the Malfoy money. About how, technically speaking, she won’t even _be_ a Malfoy—she won’t have a last name. _ _ _

__Harry looks nauseated at the idea of a baby without a name, and he says as much, practically quivering with proper Gryffindor outrage. It would be funny, almost, if everything about it didn’t feel so surreal._ _

__It’s during one of the days he spends with his head resting on Malfoy’s belly that Harry comes up with a solution._ _

__“You could get married,” Harry says, not looking up at Draco._ _

__“Huh?”_ _

__“Get married. Before the baby comes. Then she would be born in wedlock.”_ _

__Draco snorts. “Well, Potter, it’d have to be you or Smith, since you’re the only people I see anymore.” That’s not precisely true; Blaise and Pansy have come to visit a few times, looking horrified and awkward. Recently they seem to have made a tacit agreement to Owl rather than visit in person, saving everyone discomfort._ _

__Harry stays sprawled across Draco, tracing patterns on his bare hip, and doesn’t respond._ _

__Half an hour later, when Draco is nearly asleep, propped up against a small mountain of pillows and drowsy with afternoon somnolence, Harry sits up and clears his throat, shifting around the bed until Draco opens one eye and peers at him._ _

__“It could be me, then,” Harry says._ _

__Draco’s eye slips shut again. “Hmm? What are you on about, Potter?”_ _

__“You could get married. To me.” Harry doesn’t sound at all like he should sound saying those words. He doesn’t sound romantic, or nervous, or even particularly emotive at all. He offers the suggestion like he might offer Draco another croissant with tea._ _

__Draco opens both eyes, scrambles to sit up more fully. “What the fuck are you saying?”_ _

__“I’m saying we could get married. Then your baby wouldn’t be . . . illegitimate. And—and, you know, she could inherit.”_ _

__Draco feels himself blinking uncontrollably, as if each time his eyes shut they will block out the truth of what he’s seeing, that he’ll open his eyes and the situation will have changed._ _

__It doesn’t work._ _

__“Potter—“_ _

__“Wait,” Harry interrupts. “I’m not—look, I’m just saying, it would solve a problem.”_ _

__“And create several new ones! Fucking hell. You want to get _married_? Marriage, even to the fucking Saviour, is not a panacea, Potter. For Christ’s sake.”__

__Harry bristled. “It would be a solution,” he mutters. “She could have a name, and her inheritance, and Astoria couldn’t blackmail you about the baby—I’d be listed as the other parent.”_ _

__“Potter, she was blackmailing me about being fucking queer! If I claimed she was the mother, she was going to go to the _Prophet_ about my . . . proclivities. But that wouldn’t matter if I married England’s most famous faggot, now would it?”_ _

__Harry recoils, looking stung. “You’re such a fucking arsehole.”_ _

__Draco pushes himself up, wanting to storm out and knowing it will look ridiculous with his uneven gait. Instead he just stands there, looking down at Harry with his arms crossed over his belly. “I’m an arsehole? You fucking hero-complex twat. You suggest we get _married_ so you can feel like you saved someone—the Death Eater’s son, no less—so fucking noble of you, Potter. I don’t want your fucking charity proposal.” _ _

__And then he does waddle out, leaving Harry sitting on the bed alone._ _

__*_ _

__The next day, the Manor is silent, and Draco realizes how much he’s come to expect to see Potter every day. Harry’s visits aren’t always long—sometimes he just sneaks away from St. Mungo’s on his lunch break, or comes over in the evening for an hour or two—but they have been as reliable as clockwork for weeks now, and by eight in the evening, when it’s clear Harry won’t be stumbling through the Floo, Draco feels strangely abandoned._ _

__Which infuriates him._ _

__Fucking Potter. It was the most unromantic proposal in the history of proposals. Christ, Draco had done a better job when he made his betrothal to Astoria official, and god knows what a farce that was._ _

__Not that the lack of romance was the problem._ _

__No, the problem was, as usual, that Potter had raced into something to save the day, not stopping to think for five seconds about the consequences._ _

__Which is sort of a lot like how Draco wound up pregnant, but he doesn’t think about that comparison._ _

__He’s sitting in the library, stretched out with a stack of pillows behind him and a Potions text propped on his belly when he hears the Floo come to life._ _

__He hates himself when his breath catches. _Harry_._ _

__Instead, his father comes striding around the corner, a sour expression on his face._ _

__“Father,” Draco drawls, refusing to squirm even though he desperately wants to tug his t-shirt down in some ridiculous ploy to make himself look less pregnant._ _

__“Draco.” Lucius eyeballs the sofa across from Draco, then remains standing. Draco isn’t sure whether that’s a good sign or not._ _

__“Your mother is worried about you,” Lucius says curtly, looking down his straight, aristocratic nose at his son._ _

__“Oh? So funny, she didn’t Floo,” Draco says, knowing sarcasm is not helpful but unable to prevent it from popping out of his mouth._ _

__“She is distressed,” Lucius says, voice full of old world patriarchy. Draco wonders how his mother tolerates it—although it did keep her from taking the Dark Mark, so perhaps there are advantages to being considered not quite an equal._ _

__“Oh?” he repeats._ _

__“Yes, Draco!” Lucius’ patience is running thin. “You’re really going through with . . . this?”_ _

__Draco looks down at his lap. “Umm—it seems a bit late to change my mind, Father.”_ _

__Lucius narrows his eyes, and Draco isn’t sure he agrees. Lucius can be a cold man._ _

__“Draco,” Lucius says, taking a deep breath as if preparing himself to deal with a wayward child—which, Draco guesses, is how Lucius views the situation. “If you insist on . . . going through with this, how will you remarry? I’ll have a hard enough time arranging a marriage with a divorce to consider—a secret illegitimate Squib child will make it nearly impossible.” Lucius cocks his head to the side. “Perhaps we can imply the connection is a distant cousin of the Blacks,” he muses._ _

__Draco snorts at Lucius’ lack of hesitation to throw his in-laws under the proverbial carriage, then sobers. “She’ll live here as my daughter.”_ _

__Lucius’ lip curls. “I’ll end up negotiating with Arthur Weasley for Ginevra’s hand, Draco! What other pure-blood family would tolerate that?”_ _

__Draco inhales. He feels like shit. His back hurts, and his feet are swollen, and he’s retaining so much water that his cheekbones, his pretty, perfect, angular cheekbones, have disappeared. Even his fingers are swollen. And he is so fucking tired. “You know what, Father? I don’t want a wife,” he blurts._ _

__“You need an heir—“_ _

__“I’m queer,” Draco cuts him off, stumbling out of the closet without more than a second of planning. Fucking spending too much time with Potter, it was making him rash._ _

__As a testament to Lucius’ rather impressive self-control, he doesn’t react beyond a raising of his brows and a slight tightening of his mouth. “Draco, what you do outside of your marriage is your own business. What you do inside your marriage results in the continuation of the Malfoy line. I don’t care if you decide to dally with hippogriffs—Salazar knows there are some perversions lingering in the more shadowed branches of the Malfoy tree. But in a thousand years, do you know what the members of the House of Malfoy have not done? Ignored their duty in order to get fucked up the arse.”_ _

__Hmm. Lucius is only crass when he’s particularly peeved. This is dangerous. “And my duty is to marry and produce an heir?”_ _

__“Yes!” Lucius snaps._ _

__Draco nods. “Fine. Go tell Mother I’ll take care of it.”_ _

__Lucius looks at him suspiciously. Draco’s one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn is not very convincing, it seems._ _

__“Take care of it?” Lucius’ voice is carefully neutral, and Draco knows he wants to know if that’s a euphemism for getting rid of the baby._ _

__“The second marriage,” he clarifies. “I’m still having the baby.”_ _

__Lucius grinds his teeth so loudly Draco can hear it. His eyes flick up and down Draco’s body. “Soon, I presume?”_ _

__“Two weeks.”_ _

__“Your mother is worried about that, as well.” Lucius winces. “Her own confinement was—difficult. It’s why you’re an only child.”_ _

__“Well, tell Mum I’m fine,” Draco says, mustering up a lot of false bravado that he doesn’t feel._ _

__Lucius nods, looking a little unconvinced. “Well. Good. I’ll start making inquiries into the marriage market,” he says briskly. “You know the Notts have a younger daughter—looks nothing like the boy from your year, thank Merlin—it’s funny how generations of close breeding can occasionally—"_ _

__“We can talk about it later,” Draco interrupts, disgusted by both the idea of marrying Nott’s little sister and the prospect of a discussion in which Lucius waxes philosophic on the merits and difficulties of what amounts to a millennia of inbreeding. “Tell Mum I’m fine and I love her. I’ll be in touch.”_ _

__Lucius nods again. “All right.” He turns to go, then stops and looks back at Draco. “Take—take care,” he mutters, looking put upon to have to say it. Before Draco can answer he sweeps out of the room, Flooing back to France without another word._ _

__*_ _

__Harry knows he should probably give Draco time to cool down following his rather colourful reaction to Harry’s proposal, but time isn’t something they currently have a lot of to spare. Harry knows as well or better than anyone that Draco could go into labour any day—which is why he only waits forty-eight hours before Flooing back to the Manor._ _

__The parlour is empty when Harry comes through the Floo, but Noony pops into existence with a look of sheer delight on her face. “Mister Harry Potter!” she chirps. “Master Draco is in the kitchens! Come, come!” She grabs him by the hand with an exuberance that reminds Harry painfully of Dobby, and he allows himself to be dragged down a corridor and a flight of stairs._ _

__The Malfoy kitchens have a formal, even industrial look to them, and it’s obvious that all the food preparation is done by elves, not the occupants of the Manor itself. Thus, it’s even more incongruous and amusing to see a very pregnant Draco standing at a counter constructing a sandwich with keen concentration while several kitchen elves wring their hands and desperately try to do it for him._ _

__“Draco.” Harry pitches his voice softly, approaching Draco with all the delicate caution he would take in caring for a wounded and angry hippogriff._ _

__The knife in Draco’s hand clatters to the counter when he turns to see Harry, and the elves around him take the opportunity to step in and continue building the sandwich._ _

__“Potter.”_ _

__“How are you feeling?” Harry asks, because he genuinely wants to know, but also because it seems like a neutral place to start._ _

__“Wretched. I feel horrid and look worse.”_ _

__Draco does not look comfortable. His belly is cartoonish, and water retention has given his face a bloated, swollen effect. Even across the room, Harry can see that his lips are chapped. One hand is at the small of his back, giving his posture that sway-backed stance characteristic of late pregnancy. The t-shirt he’s wearing barely covers him, and his pyjama bottoms are pushed below the curve of his belly._ _

__Harry wants to run to him, to sweep Draco into his arms._ _

__He figures Draco might punch him for his trouble._ _

__“I should apologise,” Harry begins. Noony, still at his side, clasps her hands in a quiet but fervent gesture of gratitude._ _

__“For what, Potter?” Draco grabs the finished sandwich from the elves and shuffles toward the door. Harry follows without invitation. “For assuming I want you to save me? For suggesting we get married just because you can’t stand the notion of not being able to help? Or fuck, out of some sense of guilt since you’ve been fucking around with one of your patients? Please, Potter.”_ _

__Harry doesn’t have to rush to catch up, even though Draco is clearly in a hurry. They’re only a few steps out of the kitchens when Harry is right behind him._ _

__“Stop, Draco.”_ _

__Draco does, but he doesn’t turn around. Harry reaches out, takes Draco’s shoulders. Spins him in a gentle half-circle until they stand facing each other._ _

__“I’m not very good at these things.” Harry figures blunt is the best way to go. Draco can sort out the nuances. “I do feel guilty for doing this with you. I should have waited until you were no longer under my care to approach you.”_ _

__Draco’s expression does not register any emotion at all, and Harry has to swallow hard to keep going._ _

__“And I do like to help people. “ Harry shrugs. “But there are a lot of ways I could have offered to help you. Marriage is a little excessive, even for me.”_ _

__Still no response from Draco._ _

__“I asked you because I want to help and because you are you,” Harry finishes, not knowing how else to say it._ _

__Draco’s eyebrows rise by a haughty millimetre or two. “Because I’m me.”_ _

__“Yes, damn it. Because from the moment you became my patient I’ve spent too much time with you, thought of you too much, been here too often.” Harry runs his hands through his hair, tugging it up into wild tufts. “You’re always like that! Even in school. You weren’t in my House. You sure as shit weren’t my friend. There were any number of Slytherins willing to bait me and tease me and fight with me. Hell, some Ravenclaws, too. But it was always you. Always.”_ _

__Draco still doesn’t say anything, and Harry feels like kicking him in the shin. He might do it, if he wasn’t afraid Draco would topple right over._ _

__“Look—I’ll be more fun than Astoria in bed, your baby will be a Malfoy, and you’ll never get bored.”_ _

__“Sex, entertainment, and respectability all on offer? My, my, Potter.” Draco looks away, blinks a few times, and Harry’s heart is in his throat._ _

__“Six months and we divorce,” Draco finally says. “The scandal of a gay marriage and another divorce will fucking destroy my parents and my reputation, but I want her named.” His jaw twitches, and for a second Harry sees the terrified boy on the Astronomy Tower. This time, though, his wand wouldn’t have wavered._ _

__“I want an iron-clad pre-nup, too,” he adds. “You’re not getting a fucking Sickle out of this.” Draco blinks again, and this time when he speaks his aristocratic accent is so thick Harry imagines he’s listening to the Prince of Wales. “And you should hurry and find someone to perform the ceremony. And call my solicitor to draw up the necessary paperwork. I think I’m in labour.”_ _

__*_ _

__As fate would have it, Draco is _not_ in labour—a fact that Harry tries, and fails, to communicate to Draco for rest of the day. All of Harry’s wand waving, his explanation about the irregularity of the contractions, the prevalence of false labour, fall on deaf ears. As evening falls and the Houses of Malfoy and Potter are united in a quickie ceremony in the breakfast nook of the Manor, conducted by a hastily-hired Ministry appointee and attended by a swarm of teary house-elves, Draco remains convinced of his imminent lying-in. _ _

__It is only when the contractions wane and cease altogether a few hours after the wedding that Draco has to admit Harry has been correct._ _

__“No baby tonight,” he finally mutters._ _

__“No, not tonight.”_ _

__Draco sighs, shifting on his bed and rolling uncomfortably to face Harry._ _

__“You know, my life is so surreal right now I feel like I might just float away into the ether,” he says, too tired to bother being coy or brave or anything else but honest._ _

__“Never figure you’d marry a wizard, I guess.”_ _

__“Never figured I’d be out of the closet,” Draco replies. “And the fucking Boy Who Lived is hardly just a wizard.” He falls silent for a moment, then barks out a sharp peal of laughter. “When tomorrow’s _Prophet_ runs the marriage license and it gets to France, Father will shit.” _ _

__Harry doesn’t say a word, and Draco mentally flips through the laundry list of all the reasons Harry and Lucius hate each other on sight. “You should probably expect a raging Floo-in from him around midday tomorrow. The only two things he really cares about are heirs and a respectable marriage. I’ve fucked up both so badly it’s a wonder he hasn’t disowned me and tried to talk Mother into a mid-life baby to replace me.”_ _

__Harry wrinkles his nose at the idea of stately Narcissa Malfoy bearing another child—or Lucius fathering another one. “You are giving him an heir,” he points out instead._ _

__“I’m giving him a Squib born under the technical legitimacy of a highly sensational queer marriage. Believe me, Daddy Dearest is not going to be best pleased.”_ _

__They fall silent, and perhaps ten minutes pass before Harry reaches over and snakes his hand through Draco’s, lacing their fingers together._ _


	4. Chapter 4

When Lucius arrives the next day, _Prophet_ in hand and outraged lecture on his lips, Noony greets him at the fireplace to tell him Master Draco is in labour and has gone to St. Mungo’s. And is not to be disturbed, because his husband, Mister Harry Potter Malfoy, said so.

Harry takes a perverse pleasure in hearing about Lucius’ shock when Noony cracks into the delivery room to pull Harry aside and tell him of his new father-in-law’s visit. Second day of the marriage and Harry’s managed to one-up Lucius. Not bad for a half-blood, he thinks. 

*

Harry has never actually had the opportunity to deliver a baby to a wizard before, despite all the studying he’s done. So it would be different than his normal work no matter what, he guesses. But he’s pretty certain that even if he worked with wizard pregnancies and births all the time, the experience would be nothing like this. 

When they get to St. Mungo’s, it’s six in the morning, and Draco’s body is vibrating with tension. Harry can feel it coming off him in waves, and his heart breaks a little. He wants to give words of comfort, the healer’s words he knows so well, but they seem to dry up on his lips every time he tries to speak, every time he looks into Draco’s wide, panicked eyes. So he just hold’s Draco’s hand—a display of affection that Harry is sure Draco wouldn’t allow if he weren’t out of his mind with fear. 

He tells Smith immediately about the marriage. It’s a huge ethics violation for him to have been sexually involved with a patient, but the marriage whitewashes that breach. Harry knows, however, that he won’t be allowed to treat his spouse. Instead of assisting in the delivery, as he had planned, Harry will be relegated to an observer. 

Smith is irritatingly unsurprised by Harry’s announcement. He takes it in stride in a way that makes Harry wonder if the man hadn’t known all along that Harry’s interest in Draco’s case wasn’t tinged with . . . something else. 

By ten o'clock, Draco has given up silent stoicism and is crying, bitter sobs that break in his chest and remind Harry viscerally of the only other time he’s really seen Draco cry, really break down—the time he discovered Draco in the loo at Hogwarts in their sixth year. The time Harry had branded Draco with the scar that still runs down his chest in two white jagged lines. Harry knows now what Draco had been crying about then—his fear that he couldn’t do what his father wanted, that he couldn’t be what other people wanted and needed him to be, that maybe what other people wanted from him wasn’t what he wanted. Harry suspects these tears are more or less the same, driven by fears that Draco won’t be able to do this, that the people he cares about most don’t _want_ him to do this, that he himself is not certain he wants to do it. 

“Look at me,” Harry says, forcing his voice into a calm, low register. He takes both of Draco’s sweaty hands into his own. “Breathe, Draco. In and out. Right now you don’t need to think about anything but breathing.” 

Draco’s eyes roll wildly, and for a moment Harry isn’t sure Draco will be able to focus on him. He squeezes Draco’s hands, a steady pressure, until finally Draco holds his gaze. 

“You can do this,” Harry says, speaking softly and ignoring Smith and the mediwitches who are bustling around the small room. “Just like you’ve done everything you’ve had to do since this started. You can do this.”

Draco doesn’t respond, but his eyes stay locked on Harry’s.

* 

The heir to the Malfoy fortune is born at eight in the evening, a mere fourteen hours after her father was checked into St. Mungo’s. She is tiny, covered with a halo of translucent blonde hair, and has silver eyes like all the Malfoys. Draco is innately proud of this and ignores Harry when he says that most white infants have light eyes at birth. 

When Smith puts the baby in his arms, Draco doesn’t know quite how to respond. It is strangely anticlimactic, giving birth. After what felt like days of agony, it is over, and he’s struck by how quickly a body can go from excruciating pain to a strange sort of nothing, an emptiness that is disconcerting. It’s hard to breathe, and Draco realizes with something like disgust that he wishes she were back inside him, because even though for the four and a half months she spent there it felt completely wrong, foreign and alien and horrifying, now it feels wrong for her not to be there. 

Goddamn it. 

At least he’s not crying now. 

He doesn’t know what to say to her. He feels like he should speak, but frankly she looks more like a doll than a person, and all he can do is stare at her, at those huge silvery eyes that keep blinking up at him. 

“She’s beautiful.” Harry is hovering around Draco’s shoulder, peering down at the baby. 

“Yes,” Draco says, because it’s true, he guesses, but also because he doesn’t know what else to say. 

Smith and the mediwitches are working at his feet, and his legs are still up in stirrups. He suspects he should probably feel a little more naked, a little more exposed, than he does. He doesn’t know what his body must look like—Harry and Smith both explained in great detail what would happen, how the temporary birth canal would form, but Draco hadn’t listened very closely, hadn’t wanted to know a lot of the details. Now he spares a moment to hope fervently that everything goes back to normal. He’s not sure his body will ever feel like his own again. And it makes him feel a little shitty that he’s holding his child and thinking about himself. 

Goddamn it. 

He peers down at his daughter again, looking for signs of Astoria in her tiny little face. He doesn’t see any, but then again, infants don’t really look like anything besides infants. 

Fucking Astoria. 

He’s not sure how he feels about the baby he’s holding—bewildered, mostly—but of one thing he is completely, entirely certain: Astoria will never get so much as a fucking glimpse of this child. He won’t allow it. Astoria doesn’t deserve it.

“Do you know what you’ll name her?” Harry asks when they are finally alone, Smith and the mediwitches out of the room and the door shut behind them. 

Draco looks up, blinks. “No. I should have picked something before now.” 

Harry considers for a moment. He has sort of assumed that Draco will have some fancy constellation name in mind. For a moment he considers blurting out that Lily would be a lovely name, but he swallows back the words. This is not his child. Legally, for the moment, yes—but Draco made it heartbreakingly clear when he accepted Harry’s proposal that it was a temporary arrangement. 

Even if Draco’s words hadn’t been absolutely definitive on the subject, the prenuptial agreement his solicitor had provided before the ceremony was. In the case of divorce, Harry was to have no legal rights or recourse to custody. The child was a Malfoy, not a Potter. 

“Maybe a constellation,” Harry ventures.

Draco nods. “Delphinus. Delphini—the dolphin,” he murmurs. 

Harry blinks, looks down at the infant in Draco’s arms. She doesn’t look like a dolphin to him. But then again, he doubts Draco looked much like a dragon at birth—or now, for that matter. 

“That’s a big name for an infant,” he says carefully.

Draco glares up at him, and his voice is as disdainful and snobby as it ever was when they were children. “I would call her Della. And just because you have a peasant name doesn’t mean everyone should.”

Harry shrugs, unoffended. “I like Harry.” 

“You would,” Draco snorts, but his voice isn’t as cold as it was a moment before.

“Delphini Narcissa,” Draco says a moment later. “Delphini Narcissa Malfoy.” He affirms the name quickly, and Harry thinks not for the first time that sometimes Draco makes decisions more like a Gryffindor than the Slytherin he is. 

Harry looks down at the tiny child that will bear that mouthful of a name. “After your mother. That’s nice,” he says. “She will be pleased, yeah?”

Draco shrugs. “We’ll see.”

*

The first visit from the Malfoys is, Harry thinks, the most awkward scene he has ever witnessed. Della is a week old; he and Draco have been back at the Manor only a few days. 

It’s a strange, surreal time—they’re married, but none of Harry’s things are in the Manor, and they’ve made no mention of moving any of them. Harry holds Della as much as Draco does, changes nappies and rocks her for hours, but Draco still calls him Potter most of the time. Every time an owl arrives, Draco tenses, and Harry knows he’s waiting to hear from Astoria, but it never happens. Even when he was hunting Horcruxes, Harry did not feel this ill at ease, this much in limbo. Nothing about their situation is permanent—everything feels like a dream. 

And then Lucius and Narcissa arrive. 

They don’t Owl or Firecall ahead, which irritates Harry until he remembers that they own the damn Manor, that it would never occur to them to announce their arrival into their own home. He wonders how he would feel about that—to be an adult and still live in his parents’ home, even it was an ancestral mansion. He’s not sure he would like it. As he watches his new husband, he’s not sure Draco likes it, either. He’s tense, running his hands through his hair and smoothing his robes down, looking like a child called to the headmaster’s office. 

“Draco, darling,” Narcissa says, kissing him on the cheek in a way that is much more about formality than intimacy. 

“Mother,” Draco replies. 

Lucius doesn’t say anything, opting to stand a few feet behind Narcissa, tapping his cane restlessly.

“She’s in a cradle in the library,” Draco says, not beating around the bush. “Noony is with her. Would you like to see?”

Lucius’ jaw is ticking, but Narcissa looks torn, as if a part of her wants to clap her hands at the prospect of her grandchild, while another wants to turn around and march back through the Floo. When she speaks, her voice is stiff. “Noony watched you when you were a child.”

“Come see,” Draco says, and leads them through the house. Harry trails behind, wondering if Draco plans to introduce him or if Lucius and Narcissa plan to acknowledge him. At the moment, the answer to both questions seems to be no. 

When they get to the library, Noony is humming softly over Della’s cradle. Her sleepy-soft newborn eyes are open, and when the Malfoys peer over her cradle, she blinks up at them. 

“Oh.” Narcissa’s voice sounds tiny. “She looks like you, my Draco.” 

Draco turns very slightly to Harry, although he doesn’t look up at him. “My eyes, of course.” 

“Of course,” Narcissa agrees.

Harry rolls his own, then ventures a peep up at Lucius. His face is impassive, surveying the infant from a distance, and Harry yearns to hex him to pieces. _That is your granddaughter_ , he wants to shout. _Do you know what your son did to bring her into the world?_

But he doesn’t. Instead he settles onto a brocade loveseat next to Draco, across from his new in-laws. The cradle rests beside Draco, who nudges it occasionally with his foot. Noony brings tea, and Narcissa Malfoy begins to discuss, of all things, the weather, and her hopes for her garden this year. Her rose bushes, Harry surmises, are looking especially promising. 

The Malfoys, Harry decides, are fucking crazy. 

A silence falls, and Lucius decides to break it. “Harry Potter.” 

Harry blinks. “Er—yes, Mr. Malfoy?” It grates on his nerves to call him Mister, but he reminds himself he is doing it for Draco, who still looks too fragile to tolerate much in the way of theatrics. 

“How do you like living in Malfoy Manor?” Lucius asks, startling Harry. Of all the questions he might have imagined Lucius would ask, that is not one of them. 

“It’s—big,” Harry offers, figuring that is a neutral term. 

Lucius’ nostrils flare. “Indeed.” He waits a beat before adding, “Welcome.” 

Harry has never felt less welcome in his life. “Thank you.” 

“Yes, welcome,” Narcissa repeats, sounding a few degrees warmer than her husband. “I understand you were Draco’s healer.” 

Harry nods. “Yes—well, until the marriage.” 

Lucius visibly winces, but Narcissa just inclines her head. “Of course.” 

*

Della is three weeks old when Harry touches Draco again, the first time Harry’s strong healer hands have been on him when he is not pregnant. 

Draco’s first impulse is to push his hands away, to tell him he’s tired, that he doesn’t want to be touched, that he can’t believe Harry can even think he’d be interested in such a thing in between midnight bottles and nappy changes and spit up. The last three weeks have been a whirl of the unknown, of learning to care for a baby amidst the media storm that is their marriage. The days have been punctuated by awkward visits from Lucius and Narcissa, who don’t want to hold Della but do seem to want to peer at her and their son and their inexplicable son-in-law, who is content to sit next to Draco and Della and quietly watch the Malfoys navigate the situation. Between their stiff visits are Floo calls from various Weasleys who have read the _Prophet_ and demand to hear an explanation from Harry, demand to make sure he hasn’t been Imperiused into the Malfoy clutches. It has been the longest, most draining three weeks of Draco’s life. 

But Harry’s hands are so tentative, so gentle, and Noony is with Della, has been since they laid her down to sleep an hour ago, and Draco can’t muster up the energy to protest, so he’s silent as Harry’s hands skate up and down his ribs. 

“Come to bed,” Harry says. His voice is barely more than a whisper. 

When they make it to the master bedroom, Draco reaches for his wand, wanting to cast a _Nox_ before anything happens. He doesn’t want Harry to see him naked. He’s thin, too thin, and yet his belly curves out softly, nothing like the pretty planes he’d had before Della. 

“Please don’t,” Harry says, catching his hand. 

Draco nods, stiff and silent. “Fine.” 

Harry maneuvers them to the bed and lies down, pulling Draco down on top of him, gentle, gentle, until their mouths are together and they’re kissing carefully, as if each might be made of china or spun glass.

It feels better than Draco expected, and Harry tastes like sugary tea and peppermint. 

“You feel different now,” Harry mutters, pulling Draco’s newly svelte body against his. “I can get so much closer to you.” 

“Mmmf.” It’s true, but Draco doesn’t want to think about Della, about the pregnancy, about anything but this. Suddenly, he wants Harry as much as he’s ever wanted anything. 

He slides a hand down and grazes Harry’s cock, erect and tenting his pyjama bottoms. Harry groans, and Draco wraps his hand around it. 

“Fuck, Potter.” It’s not eloquent, but Draco can’t seem to help it. 

When they’re both naked, Draco kisses a winding path down Harry’s smooth chest and belly, bites the insides of his thighs until Harry is writhing, his hands scrabbling for purchase against the silk sheets. 

Draco remembers the way Harry touched him the very first time, on the exam table, the way Harry sucked his cock with a kind of skill Draco hadn’t expected of him. When he takes Harry’s cock in his mouth, he hopes it makes Harry as mindless as Draco felt that first time when Harry did it to him. 

Draco licks the head first, teasing and flickering, then licks a stripe down the length, kisses Harry’s balls, sucks lightly, delaying the moment when he takes Harry fully in his mouth. 

When he finally does, he relaxes his throat and takes Harry’s cock all the way down on the first stroke. If he could have spoken, he would have yelled in triumph when Harry promptly began to babble. 

“Fuck, Draco, fuck, fuck.” Harry’s hips are vibrating, and Draco can tell he’s fighting the urge to snap his hips up, to thrust. Draco puts a hand on each of Harry’s hipbones, forces him down, and sucks him, lets his tongue drag over the vein on the underside of Harry’s cock. 

It is perhaps two minutes before Harry is whispering desperately. “Draco, gonna come, gonna come, fuck, I’m sorry.” 

Only Harry would apologise for coming when it is so clearly what Draco intends. 

*

Harry’s orgasm is still vibrating through his body, pleasant aftershocks that rock through his stomach and his spine, when Draco sits up and summons a bottle of lubricant from his dresser. Harry raises his eyebrows, still too strung out from coming to speak. He hasn’t figured Draco for much of a top, not once in the many times he’s imagined them together.

“Let me fuck you, Potter.” Draco’s voice is raspy, a cocksucker voice, and Harry’s dick twitches against his thigh. 

“Um. I don’t bottom very often,” Harry says, aware that it is not an outright refusal. 

“I’ll make it good. I’ll go slow.” Draco’s long, skinny fingers trace patterns over Harry’s hipbones, and the touch is as much a promise as his words. 

Harry inhales, and Draco speaks again. “I won’t hurt you.” It’s only four words, the kind of thing men have been saying to their lovers since time immortal, but it feels like more. 

“Yeah. Okay.” 

Draco smiles, a soft little smirk that leaves his white teeth hidden, and then without a word he pushes Harry’s legs back, spreads them against Harry’s chest so he is open, exposed, and Harry has to fight the urge to pull away. He doesn’t like feeling this vulnerable—it’s too much to ask, never mind that Draco has been this defenceless in front of Harry as his patient too many times for Harry to count. But then Draco’s hand is on him, slick fingers tracing delicate little circles around his rim, and Draco’s expression is so intent, so focused, that Harry doesn’t dare interrupt. 

Draco doesn’t push him hard; long minutes pass before two fingers are inside Harry, fucking him steadily with a movement that is not demanding but insistent. 

Harry’s groans are guttural and low. When Draco slips a third finger inside him, the groans turn to a gasp, and Harry wonders how Draco will ever fit inside him when he already feels fucked full. 

“Relax. I’ll fit,” Draco murmurs, and Harry wonders if he’s spoken aloud or if Draco is just that perceptive. 

“Do you want to be on your knees?” Draco asks. It’s a polite question, a necessary one, but Draco’s still fucking him with his fingers, pushing harder even than before, and Draco’s pupils are blown wide open, and Harry can’t seem to find any words to answer.

“Like this, then,” Draco says, and before Harry realizes it Draco has slicked his cock one-handed and is now replacing his fingers with the blunt head of his cock. “Push back,” Draco mutters, and Harry nearly blushes. It’s such beginner’s advice, not the kind of thing he should need to be told, and yet he seems to have forgotten everything he knows. 

“Fuck, you’re tight.” 

“I told you I don’t do this much,” Harry says when he can find his voice. It _hurts_ , and he’s all too aware of why he typically prefers to be on the other end of this equation. 

“Shh. It’s okay. ‘S okay.” And then it is, somehow. Draco’s cock slips all the way inside him and Draco holds still, lets Harry adjust, until the pain is less pain than intensity, the good kind of hurt, the hurt that isn’t a searing lance but a slow, throbbing ache. 

Draco’s hair is messy, damp and sticking to his forehead, and he still looks gaunt from the pregnancy. His cheekbones are too harsh, his chin too pointed, and the smudges under his eyes are still there. The stretchmarks on his abdomen are pink, bright, not yet faded to the silvery-white traces that they will someday be. Draco looks dangerous, feral—but also, Harry sees, Draco looks in control here, a glimmer of his former confidence present even in his haggard face, his weary, still-recovering body. He’s pushing Harry’s thighs back, and his biceps are lean—skinny, to be truthful—but more powerful than their nearly delicate musculature suggests. 

When Draco starts to fuck him in earnest, long smooth strokes that are all about restrained power, Harry hears a low keening noise that he realizes is himself. His cock is hard again, lying on his belly, and he reaches down to stroke it dry in time with Draco’s thrusts. 

“Yes,” Draco mutters. “Come again. Come with me.” 

Harry nods, agreeing mindlessly. “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

“Fuck—gonna come inside you,” Draco says, and it’s not a warning but a declaration. His pretty lips part, and Harry feels his orgasm build as he watches Draco shudder through his own. 

When it’s over and Draco has collapsed on top of him, Harry closes his eyes. Wonders if this changes anything. Everything. 

*

_Four Years Later_

Harry watches through the window of the Leaky Cauldron as Della and Draco Malfoy make their way down Diagon Alley. Della’s hair has turned out as blonde as her father’s, and Draco was right in claiming her silver newborn eyes as his own. Unlike Draco, however, she is soft and plump, a cherub of a little girl with rosy cheeks and sturdy legs. As Harry watches her hustle to stay in step with Draco’s long strides, he cannot imagine that Draco was ever anything but harsh lines and angles, even as a toddler. Della is different. 

It hurts a little bit to see them together, oblivious to Harry’s eyes on them, and he turns away, looks down at the mug in his hand and takes a drink. 

When the bell on the door jingles and Draco steps through, Harry’s eyes snap forward. Della is perched on Draco’s hip, chubby arms wrapped around his shoulders, and Draco is whispering something in her ear. Harry’s breath catches. 

And then Della turns to look at him, and her eyes light up. “Daddy!” she squeals. “Father said you were here!” She pushes against Draco, and he sets her down and lets her run across the sticky floorboards to leap into Harry’s lap. 

“Surprise, baby,” Harry says, wondering why his throat feels so tight. Sometimes it strikes him like this, when he sees them together—how much he loves them, how hard it was, in the beginning, to think that he would get to keep neither of them. How hard it is to believe, sometimes, that this is his child, that Draco is his husband. 

“You got off work early,” Della says. “Father says you work too much, and it’s about time you left, and the other Healers at St. Mungy’s should be grateful you even bother to show up,” she adds. “He says you get off on being needed. Get off what?” 

“Get off nothing,” Harry says firmly, glaring at Draco. “You’re a prat,” he adds, mouthing the words over Della’s head. 

Draco just grins, sliding into the booth across from them. “Della, tell your daddy what you told me this afternoon.”

“About what? About Uncle Ron’s cat that had kittens—“

“Not that, baby.” Draco wrinkles his nose. It still sets his teeth on edge that his child refers to any Weasley as kin, but she and Harry both insist. “About your Aunt Ginny.” 

“Oh, that.” Della gives a sage nod. “Aunt Ginny’s going to have a baby. Just like Father had me. She hasn’t told anyone yet but she’s going to have a baby and the Daddy is Mr. Thomas, who came to the party with her and drew me the pictures of the unicorn. It’s going to be a little boy.” 

Harry raises his eyebrows. Ginny and Dean haven’t dated since Hogwarts, as far as he knows. “Oh, really?” 

“Yes.” 

Draco and Harry exchange a look. This isn’t the first time Della has predicted something. She knew when Ron and Hermione were expecting Rose. When her Aunt Andromeda had suffered a mild heart attack last spring, Della had woken Harry and Draco before anyone Firecalled them. 

“How do you know, Della?” Harry looks down at his daughter, who is playing happily with the silverware on the table. 

“I see it, Daddy.” She sets the spoon down on the table and looks from Draco to Harry. “You don’t never see anything that’s going to happen?” 

“Don’t ever,” Draco corrects. “And no, we don’t.” 

“Hmm.” Della considers this for a moment. “I guess it’s probably ‘cause you get to do magic. I won’t be able to.” 

Harry and Draco look at each other again. They’ve never told Della she is nearly certainly a Squib. They’ve never made a big production of magic, never given her a toy wand like so many other wizard parents; it has simply been something she sees the adults in her life do. 

“She told me this today,” Draco says to Harry, then looks back down at Della. “Tell your Daddy what else you told me.”

“I dreamed I went to a big castle when I got bigger. Even bigger than our house, Father! They wanted not to let me go but I did. And Hugo and Rose were there, and Malachai Zabini, and everybody. It was so cool.” Della continues in this vein for a few minutes, detailing everything she remembers about the castle. 

Harry listens intently. As Della’s story winds down, he is already drafting a letter to Headmistress McGonagall in his head, petitioning for Della’s entry into Hogwarts despite her lack of magical ability. When he looks up at Draco again, he recognizes a particularly Malfoy expression on his face—the one that says he’s mapping out the surest way to guarantee an outcome he desires. Harry can practically see columns of Galleons being tallied behind Draco’s eyes as he calculates how much of the combined Malfoy-Potter fortune it will take to change school policy toward Squibs. 

Harry smiles over Della’s head at Draco. Their daughter is not so unmagical after all—just a different kind of magic. Life, he thought, was funny that way.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm making my way back into fandom after a long hiatus. I'm [secretsalex](http://secretsalex.tumblr.com) on tumblr, if you wanna come hang out. 
> 
> For the record — comments mean the world to me, if you’re so inclined.


End file.
